


Undertow

by loserladder



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Author Takes Liberties And Abuses Artistic License, Corniness, Future Fic, M/M, Post-The Blood of Olympus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:24:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4021474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loserladder/pseuds/loserladder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy has stopped talking to everyone except a dryad. Nico wants to know why. (He also wants to know why sometimes the person you love the most as a teenager is not the person you end up with, and why sometimes they are.)</p><p>Also, apparently Nico di Angelo is more mature than anyone would have expected him to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so this is going to be a bitch of a fic, friends. We're talking 44k split into 6 chapters. You can blame copious amounts of Purity Ring for the way this turned out, too. Shout out to my goofass sister for caring about me enough to tell me that while this isn't the best thing I've written, it's also not the worst. It hasn't been beta'd, not really, and I am updating as I edit.
> 
> Also, I probably have butchered Will Solace's character and his relationship with Nico; I apologize for this, but you know, whatever. This is fanfiction, and it is mostly self-indulgent. I basically skipped everyone growing up and straight to their awkward twenties when they realize that, while they thought they had everything figured out as teenagers, they actually have no clue how to person, so if everyone seems OOC, that would be why. I also attempted to keep this realistic, considering it only takes place over the span of like a two weeks tops, lmao.

Nico has known heartbreak. He’s known that wretched wrenching feeling of wanting something beyond aching, beyond words. Hating himself, who he is, where he comes from; none of those are new to him either. In fact, Nico would go so far as to say it’s a common theme in his life. So when Will, his boyfriend off and on for the past four years, tells him he wants to talk, Nico already knows what’s about to happen.

They sit on the balcony of their apartment in New Rome, Will obviously unable to bring himself to make eye contact and Nico sitting with his legs crossed like a kindergartner. It’s nice out at night, when the majority of the lights are dimmed. Nico can almost pretend he feels a gentle breeze, but that tends to remind him of ship decks and the smell of monsters.

“It’s been four years,” Will starts, as if they hadn’t just been talking about the newest Pokemon game. “and you still aren’t in love with me.”

Nico snorts. “And you know this for sure, hm? Got my feelings all figured out?” He sounds harsh, but the repetition of this argument is getting out of hand. Will does this periodically, works like clockwork. Jason mentions Percy once during his frequent Iris calls and suddenly Will gets paranoid.

Will makes a noise of frustration. “Nico, we break up every couple of months!”

“Because you break up with me,” Nico reminds him, succeeding in securing a bored tone.

“You never try and stop me from breaking up with you,” Will reasons. Nico opens his mouth to retort only to close it again, because his now-once-boyfriend is not wrong. “Exactly.”

“Maybe it’s because I know we’ll just end up back together?” Nico suggests, bringing his knees to his chin. His legs have gotten longer, ridiculously so, and he’s going to need new jeans again, but he can still manage to fold them against his body.

“I don’t think that’s really it,” Will says, and he sounds so sad, Nico feels incredibly guilty. It rises up in him, sneaking out from whatever hell infested hidey hole Nico keeps the majority of his emotions, and poisons him from the inside out. He can already feel the insomniatic weeks in his future.

Nico picks at the ends of his pants that are just a tad too high on his ankles. “Are we going to get back together this time?” he asks, because it’s a fair question.

Will gives him a hard look. “Nico, I always come back to you, because I love you. More than anybody,” he admits, and he looks like he’s breaking inside. Nico wants to feel that way about this moment, but he’s felt too much heartbreak before to feel it now.

“I love you, too,” Nico tells him, because it’s true. If he could name the easiest parts of his life, it would be the times with Will.

“Not enough,” Will retorts, because it’s also true. He tries to give Nico a reassuring smile. “We’re both young. I’ll bounce back. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for, if what Jason says is true.”

Nico kind of wants to say he’s been trying to bounce back his whole life and just ends up looking like a deflated basketball. He also knows that Will wouldn’t really appreciate the sentiment of that comment right now. “It won’t last,” Nico says offhandedly. He must sound kind of bitter, because Will looks both taken aback and more upset.

“You should probably leave,” Will says after a minute of watching Nico watch him. Rolling onto his feet, Nico goes into the living room to grab his stuff. He hadn’t really unpacked since the last time Will kicked him out.

“You think Hazel’s still awake right now?” Nico asks. Will snorts.

“She has an old lady’s sleeping schedule. You should probably go to Jason’s. He’d probably enjoy the company, although Reyna does have that meeting tomorrow morning…” Will shrugs and starts grabbing some of the things Nico hadn’t gotten to yet.

Nico takes the stuff from him and snickers a little. “Hazel is definitely not an old lady. You remember, what was it, three months ago? I showed up and freakin’ Leo answered the door covered in bite marks and wearing Frank’s boxers.”

Will covers his face with his free hand. “Please, gods, don’t remind me. You Iris messaged me right after, and they all looked so guilty. And naked.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t have to sleep in the other room. Pretty sure I might never recover,” Nico laments.

“Poor baby,” Will says, but he looks better now than he did before. He makes an aborted move towards Nico and they both freeze. Instead of the kiss they both pretend Will definitely was not going to give him, he hands him another one of his socks that Nico keeps lying around.

“Thanks,” Nico says, awkwardly. He zips up his bag, makes sure he still has the rest of his stuff, and gives Will another look.

Will still has an expression on his face like he’s been suckerpunched, and it just totally sucks in every way, because Nico genuinely does care for him. He loves him, and he knows that this is hurting him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a keychain with a single key on its circle. He secures his bag on his shoulder and manages to slide the key off, before tossing it to where Will is watching him miserably. “You should probably keep that this time around.”

Will catches it easily. “Nico,” he starts, but he stops himself. “I really fucking love you.”

Another piece of Nico breaks. “I know. We’ll talk soon, promise,” Nico lies, and leaves.

 

* * *

 

Jason is still awake this time of night, because he answers the door. He gives Nico one solemn look then opens the door, inviting the other boy in.

“Thanks,” Nico says idly, automatically slipping his shoes off. Reyna hates when anyone wears shoes into the house, and Jason is nothing if not accommodating to her strange household quirks.

“It’s because I mentioned Percy, isn’t it,” Jason says, sounding tired and regretful. Nico waves off his concern and plops onto his couch.

“I think this is really it this time,” Nico says, staring at the ceiling. Jason’s eyes are all round and supportive, and while Nico has adjusted to having friends who care about his emotional state, it doesn’t mean he is always having an emotion.

“I knew I shouldn’t have, but-”

“Yeah, Percy suddenly trying go Bear Grylls is kind of big news.” Nico shrugs. “The end was a long time coming, honestly. He deserves better.”

Jason sits down next to him. “I think you’re a great catch. You just referenced Man Vs Wild, and that’s only a couple years too late,” he says with a teasing grin. Nico rolls his eyes.

“There is a lot of modern television to catch up on, and I can’t just download it into my brain like a robot. I’m never going to be hip, okay, you already knew this,” Nico complains, and Jason snorts.

“Not all of us were meant to be ‘hip’,” Jason says, using air quotes. Nico points at him accusingly.

“You nerd! Air quotes are not cool.”

“Neither is the word ‘hip’,” Jason counters.

“I will kill both of you,” Reyna shouts from the other room. Jason and Nico give each other a look before laughing as quietly as possible.

Nico rests his head back on the couch, staring back at the ceiling. The rough texture combined with the white paint makes it look as if the landlord only painted over dirt and called it a roof. “I won’t stay long,” Nico assure Jason.

Jason’s smile drops a little. “You should talk to Hazel before you leave tomorrow,” he says, accurately reading between Nico’s lines.

“It’s not like I won’t come back,” Nico says.

Jason ignores this. “Where will you go?” he asks, suspiciously.

Nico shrugs.

After another minute of Jason staring at him, reading his face, he sighs. “Do you need the address?” Jason asks, sounding tired. Nico thinks that Jason had been banking harder on his relationship with Will than he had.

“No,” Nico says, barely above a whisper. If he closed his eyes right now, he would be back on the Argo II, in his borrowed bed, all of his focus on the bright life that radiated from Percy, even through the cloak of darkness that filled Tartarus so completely. He can feel it now, clings to it sometimes out of muscle memory. He could find Percy anywhere, but he doesn’t say that out loud. He doesn’t need to.

“Okay,” Jason says, after a moment. “I think it’ll be healthy if you take this time to tell him.”

Nico snorts as sardonically as he possibly can. “Tell him what? ‘When I was younger, I was stupidly in love with you, and stupidly let it ruin my relationship’?”

“Love isn’t stupid,” Jason argues.

“That’s just your years with Piper speaking,” Nico teases. “How is she, by the way?”

“Still trying to get Annabeth’s attention. It’s hell to watch, honestly. They’re like best friends, except for all the gay longing stares,” Jason tells him, exasperated.

Nico fake shivers. “Horrifying.”

Jason laughs. “You know I don’t mean it like that.”

“I do,” Nico says. “Gay longing stares are the worst.”

“Will used to stare at you,” Jason tells him. “Even though he had you, he would look at you like he didn’t.”

Nico curls up into the corner of the couch. “I think I want to go to sleep now.”

Jason holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright. Reyna probably wants her human bedheater back anyway.”

“Gross,” Nico says, and Jason laughs, sitting up and then standing.

“Night, Nico.”

“Night,” Nico replies to Jason’s retreating back. He grabs the blanket Reyna keeps on the couch and curls up again.

The tears come fast, and while this isn’t the first time one of his and Will’s break ups has made him cry, the fact it will be the last makes it all the more torturous to endure. It feels as if his ribcage is breaking and folding into his organs, like he can’t breathe right anymore. He mourns for a friend, for a relationship he had wanted to work so badly, and falls asleep between one breath and the next.

 

* * *

 

Hazel hugs him for nearly five minutes straight when he shows up the next day. When she pulls back, her eyes are a little teary, and Nico feels compelled to remind her he can literally be at her place in a minute, tops, from where he’s going. She smacks his arm and then rubs it consolingly. “I’m so sorry it didn’t work out, Nico,” she says.

“It sucks,” he confesses. “It really, really sucks. Hardcore.”

She snickers. “They’ll make a Millennial out of you yet.”  
  
Nico waits until she shouts to Frank where she’s taking her brother and then loops his arm through hers. He brings his bags, because it’ll be easier for him in the long run, but she frets enough that he hands her his backpack. Everything else, he carries.

“This is really all of your stuff?” she asks, once they sit down at the little cafe she likes that is close enough to walk to. She gives Nico a measuring look. “It kind of looks like you never really bothered to settle down.”

Nico shrugs uncomfortably. “Well, the first half of our relationship was long distance,” he reminds her. “I never really planned on staying in one place for very long until we got kind of serious.”

Hazel gives him a knowing look, but lets it go, blessedly. She tinkers with the cup of tea in front of her. “I’m going to miss having you right down the road.”

“The good news is you have two cute distractions back at your place,” Nico says, and Hazel’s face turns bright pink. She fans herself a little, a quirk she hadn’t dropped, even into her later teen years.

“That hardly matters in the barracks,” she reminds him. “We’re only at Leo’s for a couple of days, then Frank and I are back to camp.”

“It pays to date older,” Nico says sagely, and she reaches over to smack his arm again, giggling.

“When did you get so droll?” she wonders.

“Curse of being a Hades kid: you’re a constant downer,” he reminds her, and she nods.

“We sure have a lot to deal with,” she adds genuinely, and Nico really wishes he had spent more time with his sister while he had lived in the same city as her. “Are you really going to find Percy?”

“Finding him won’t be hard,” Nico tells her. “Honestly, I’m surprised he’s lasted this long all alone out there.”

“I’m sure he has someone to talk to,” Hazel comments. “Fish, if nothing else.”

Nico groans. “He’s by the sea? Damn.”

Hazel gives him a puzzled look. “Don’t you know his address?”

“Why does everyone know his address? Isn’t he supposed to be in some secluded area, hiding away?” Nico asks.

“It’s Percy,” she says with another shrug. “You know how he is. I think he wants someone to come up there, but the last time anyone tried, he sent them away.”

“You mean Annabeth,” Nico reminds her. “That’s not just anyone.”

“Neither are you,” she tells him, and his heart doesn’t skip a beat at the implication. It also does not sink when she adds, “You’re, like, the king of isolation.”

“Gee, thanks,” he says, settling into his seat. She gives him a confused look.

“Well, it’s not like I’m wrong. But if anyone could convince him that the solitary path isn’t the way to go, it’d be you,” she continues in the same considerate, hopeful tone, as if Nico isn’t suddenly sulking across from her.

Nico waves his hand at the air. “Yeah, yeah, bring back the golden boy, erase the debt, I get it.”

“What?” Hazel asks, eyes wide.

“Video game thing,” he answers, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.

They spend the rest of the meal talking about random things happening with her, Frank, and Leo, and how she’ll keep an eye on Jason for him. “I know he’s with Reyna now, but I just keep thinking the whole Piper and Annabeth thing is going to make him sad again,” she comments. “It was so horrible after his and Piper’s break up. Wasn’t like that with Percy and Annabeth’s though.”

“I wouldn’t really know about that one,” Nico says, trying not to sound like he wants to either. “I just one day have Jason saying, ‘Percy and Annabeth aren’t together anymore,’ and then Will saying, ‘you should leave’. And now he’s gone off into the woods or something.”

“Maybe this is his breakdown,” Hazel says, cupping her cheek. “I really hope he’s okay.”

“It’s Percy Jackson,” Nico reminds her, and she gives him a soft smile.

“He’s still a person.”

When Nico leaves, Hazel’s eyes tear up again. They exchange I’ll Miss You’s and Nico promises to call her as frequently as he calls Jason, if not more. Nico tells her to be safe and careful, because she’s his sister, and sometimes all he can think about is the last person who held that title.

Once they’ve said their goodbyes, Nico closes his eyes and actively focuses on the point of energy he’s been keeping track of for longer than he would like to admit. Stepping into the shadows is like the first step into a childhood home after a long time away, and he takes the long way around, breezing through cities, counties, and states until he’s close enough to stop. When he opens his eyes again, there is a small beach and a small house facing it.

It’s a cove, and Nico suddenly wonders how exactly Annabeth got here, because the house is surrounded by large stone walls, as if the gods had pushed the point of a cliff downwards towards the sea. Nico stands underneath the single palm tree, the shadow that let him enter, and marvels at what he almost wants to call a shack.

He starts walking towards it, only to be pulled back by a hand around his wrist.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” says a nymph, obviously a dryad. The ghostly blue of her skin contrasted interestingly with the shreds of leaves she had woven into a dress. “Percy doesn't want guests.”

“He’ll want to see me,” Nico tells her, trying to pull out of her grip.

Her other hand snaps out to grab on tighter. “That’s what the last one said, but he didn’t want to see her! Not that I blame him. She was so white,” the dryad complains.

Nico shakes his wrists angrily, trying to yank his way out. With a huff, he stills, and the dryad smiles cruelly, thinking she’s won. Nico closes his eyes, focuses slightly, and smirks as the dryad gasps. The land around her tree shakes threateningly, and her grip drops as she clings to the thick trunk.

“Stop that! Evil demigod!” the dryad cries. “You’re not allowed!”

Nico smirks a little more. “Do I look like I need your permission?” he taunts. He unsettles the ground a little more, just to make a point.

“Did you come here just to upset my tree?” Percy calls from behind him. Nico’s head snaps around, and he does not blush, because he is legally an adult and had a serious, adult relationship for multiple years. He’s even had sex before! Blushing should be like virginity; gone forever once he’s had a face full of dick.

Thinking about dick while Percy watches him from his leaning position in the doorway of his home is not the ideal situation, and Nico tries quickly to change it, in a mature manner.

“She started it,” he says grumpily. Nailed it.

Percy looks surprised for a second and then snorts. “Are you sure? You can be kind of abrasive when you want to be.”

Nico tries not to take that to heart. Instead, he gives the still cowering dryad a dirty look. “She was all over me, like, three seconds before you got out here.”

The dryad looks at Percy pitifully. “I was just trying to make sure he left you alone.”

“I appreciate it, Wilhelmina, but Nico comes and goes as he pleases. He’s special like that,” Percy says, giving Nico a smile that makes Nico a tad weak in the knees. It’s not his fault; Percy grew up even more gorgeous than Nico thought he would. His hair is longer, a mess that leans more to one side now days, and when he smiles, the laugh lines near his still startling green eyes make Nico want to trace them with his fingertips.

“I’ve told you to call me Willy,” the dryad chirps in a charmed manner, and Nico thinks they might have some common ground after all. He’s starting to realize that visiting his still dashing once-crush probably wasn’t that great of an idea, especially if he’s going to walk around in wifebeaters that hang loosely on his body like this.

Nico coughs, to remind himself he has to breath, despite living for an indeterminate amount of time in an airtight jar once. “I actually don’t travel as much anymore,” Nico says.

Percy looks at his bags. “You definitely did not used to carry luggage.” He picks up the biggest of the bags, all of which Nico had dropped in his altercation with the dryad, and starts carrying it towards the house. He stops when he realizes Nico isn’t following. “You are staying for a while, aren’t you?”

Nico feels like he’s stepped into the Twilight Zone, which actually is a super cool show once he forced himself to watch it. In any case, he picks up the rest of his stuff and follows Percy into the house, kicking off his sand-filled shoes on the porch.

Percy watches him trip his way through the threshold and gives Nico a second to look around.

It isn’t the smallest place he’s ever seen, (not after Jason’s last apartment, before he moved in with Reyna) but it’s cozy enough. There are only four rooms, from what he can tell, and three of them are out in the open, bleeding one into another like rivers into the ocean. The furniture looks worn down, like it’s weathered sand storms, children, and other natural disasters then lived to tell the tale and put in this odd house. Nico gives Percy a reassuring smile he usually only uses on Jason when he gets it in his head that Nico needs worrying after.

Only that just seems to throw Percy for a fucking loop, because he stares at Nico like he’s sprouted a second head that spoke fluent Italian. His current head can speak Italian just fine, of course, but he doesn’t think that would make a difference to Percy. Nico’s smile must fall off his face and break Percy’s shock, because he speaks again.

“This way to the bedrooms,” Percy says, sort of subdued. Nico counts the months in his head, and no matter how he looks at it, even with three months of isolation, Percy doesn’t have any excuse to go crazy just yet.

The one room Nico couldn’t see turns out to be two, one of which that leads to the backyard. The room across from that one is where Percy drops Nico’s bag in. It isn’t super huge, but again, he’s seen worse, and there enough space for a full bed. Nico drops the rest of his stuff, and looks at Percy, who’s rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’ll just leave you to unpack, or whatever,” Percy mumbles and walks away, leaving Nico gaping after him.

Instead of unpacking, Nico sits on the perfectly made bed and tries to consolidate this Percy Jackson with the one he grew up with. He fights the urge to run down the hall and shake Percy’s shoulders, shouting what he’s done with the real Percy. Percy doesn’t stand in awkward silence when an old friend comes to visit; doesn’t keep his body parts to himself, because casual physical affection has never been something Percy has thought about much. Hell, Percy doesn’t mumble unless it’s a snide comment he knows he shouldn’t say at full volume but feels obligated to say because it needs to be said.

Nico kind doesn’t know what to do with this Pod Person Percy (Pod Percy?). Back in the day, avoidance was the best strategy; Percy has the kind of personality that just sucks him in and spits out the bones. Now, Percy seems more subdued, and while Nico has been watching for a wild storm, he’s starting to think he needs to watch for the undertow. Something isn’t right.

After another second of freaking out, Nico pushes himself off the bed, dusts himself off, and takes off his damnable socks. He tries to get his hair back into line and briefly considers rolling up the cusps of his black jeans, but they just aren’t short enough yet. Bracing himself for the weirdness that is seeing Percy after four years of radio silence between them and having him turn out to be so different, Nico walks down the hallway and towards the various noises he hears happening in the house.

Percy is walking around, all nervous energy, and Nico feels a part of himself relax. At least Percy is still constantly moving, the way he’s always been. He looks up at Nico with big eyes, as if he wasn’t expect Nico to actually still be here or leave the room.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I’m doing here?” Nico asks, leaning against the mouth of the hallway.

Percy’s face darkens, but he gives Nico a forced smile. “For the same reason Annabeth was here a couple days ago, I’d imagine.”

“Nah,” Nico tells him. “I think solitude is a great idea. It isn’t like you’re a people person or anything.”

Percy frowns and straightens up from where he had previously been messing with the worn down cushions on the couch. “I just needed a break, okay?”

Nico holds his hands up, reminiscent of Jason’s favorite hand gesture when Nico starts getting pissy. “No judgement. I didn’t actually stop coming and going until about two years ago. Sometimes it’s good to just disappear.”

Percy nods, his body relaxing obviously. “Yeah.” His eyebrows furrowed. “What happened two years ago?”

Suddenly Nico regrets trying to relate to anyone ever. “I, uh. I got a boyfriend, and he didn’t really like me traveling all the time.”

If Percy is surprised about Nico’s preference, he doesn’t show it. “Oh, yeah. Will, right? Why didn’t you just take him with you?”

“I probably could have,” Nico admits. “But I thought settling for at least a little while wouldn’t hurt. I got a lot closer to my sister.” He has definitely lost control of this conversation.

Percy takes a seat in a faded blue and white striped chair, motioning for Nico to take the faded ugly yellow couch. “How does he feel about you being here?”

Nico shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter, since we broke up. I’d imagine he’d be a bit upset though.”

“Oh, damn,” Percy says. “Sorry, man. That sucks.”

“It’s cool. I hear you went through a break up too, recently,” Nico says, trying not to sound like he’s attempting to lead the conversation.

Percy gives him a smile that makes his heart beat a little faster. That’s going to get annoying, fast, Nico thinks to himself. “Annabeth and I were together for a long time. I’m not really sure I know how to be me without her being mine, you know?”

“Is that why you-” Nico makes vague hand gestures towards the whole of the house.

“Maybe,” Percy says too quickly. “But it doesn’t hurt that even the gods can’t seem to find me here.”

“Percy,” Nico says, using his gentlest tone. “Everyone knows your address. I had three people offer it to me when they realized I was coming to visit.”

“Only trustworthy people know it,” Percy corrects him.

“So basically every person you’ve ever called a friend,” Nico surmises.

Percy snorts. “You’re so sarcastic, now.”

“It’s not really a new thing,” Nico says. “People just listen more now.”

“Or you talk more. You seem a lot more comfortable. And open,” Percy says. “If that makes any sense.”

“I’ve grown up a little, I guess. We can’t all stay angsty teenagers forever,” Nico tells him, suddenly very uncomfortable. Usually, Jason, Hazel, and any other person who wants to figure out what is happening in his life has to guess themselves. He doesn’t like forming things into words, never has, yet here he is, blathering on to someone who tried to get away from it all. “You’ve changed a lot too, for what it’s worth.”

Percy has his sad smile on again, one that Nico is starting to associate with nostalgia. “Yeah, Annabeth’s told me.”

It kind of hits Nico right then, that he’s sitting on Percy’s nasty yellow couch in the middle of nowhere. He’s traveled here, has known he was coming here for nearly a day and half now, and he never bothered to figure out what he was doing here beyond trying to find out what is wrong with Percy. He’s also realizing what his sister must of have known before him, that he’s going to be here for a good bit of time if he’s working with the little bits and pieces Percy’s giving him.

“What do you even do in this place?” Nico asks, looking around again. There’s another door that leads to a patio in front of him, all shiny glass that would do no good in a hurricane. Nico supposes Percy doesn’t really have to worry about that, though, being able to control the sea and all.

“I swim a lot,” Percy admits. “I’ve been trying to write.”

Nico snorts, only to see Percy isn’t kidding. In fact, he looks kind of nervous, pink around the edges. “Wow, really? I thought your superhero attention span was too bad for that kind of thing.”

Percy nods, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah, it is, but. There’s just so much that happened to us, with the prophesies and quests, and it’s not like it’s written down the way the other objects of greek mythos are. I just wanted to… I don’t know. Immortalize the sacrifices we’ve all made.”

Nico finds himself gaping again. “How you manage to make writing sound noble, I’ll never understand.”

Percy looks a little pinker. “Trust me, it’s anything but noble. It just seems like someone needs to write it down.”

“I think it’s a good idea. If you need any help, well. I’m here now,” Nico says. Something else occurs to him. “You are okay with me staying, right?”

Percy frowns, looking a little cagey. “I wouldn’t have brought your bag in if I wasn’t okay with you staying.”

Nico isn’t entirely sure that is the whole truth, but he lets it slide. “Cool. So, do I get a tour?”

The way Percy bounces up, like finally having something to do has revived him somehow, makes Nico smile. Percy doesn’t stare this time, but he does double take. Nico is quick to squash it, forcing himself to stand anyway.

With Percy’s cove being so small, there is very little for Nico to actually be introduced to, but Percy makes up for it by showing him the small things, like where the silverware and towels are kept in the kitchen and bathroom, respectively. Nico’s more than a little alarmed to find they’ll be sharing a bathroom that is attached to both their rooms, but he thinks that might be left over from living with Will, who had a thing for long, hot showers.

Outside, Percy has a table on his patio with two solitary, mismatched chairs and a nice overhang that blocks enough sun to make it Nico’s future favorite spot outdoors. In front, besides the obvious that was the beach, Nico is finally introduced to Willy the overprotective dryad.

“Annabeth and I had a little fight when she came to visit last,” Percy concedes. “I think Wilhelmenia blames herself for letting Annabeth come into the house.”

“Well, she definitely will not be making that mistake again,” Nico tells him. He side eyes Percy, before asking. “What did you guys fight about?”

Percy’s face goes through a spectrum of emotions before settling on resigned. “A bit of this, bit of that.”

“Sounds rough,” Nico says. Taking a deep breath, he gives Percy an out. “Alright, let’s not pretend like you haven’t been itching to show me the beach since I got here.”

With a bright grin that dazzles Nico more than any piece of water could, Percy starts herding him towards the water. They stand on the edge of the beach, both staring out at the waves. Nico chances a look at Percy, who has a terrifying look of contemplation on his face, a look that used to mean some terrifying plan was about to work and the day would be saved. Now, he just looks sort of sad.

Nico claps his hands to break the moment and gives Percy a grin. “Alright, you’ve convinced me. Day at the beach it is,” he says, moving to take off his black tee shirt. When he starts to undo his jeans, Percy speaks, sounding mildly alarmed.

“Don’t you want swim trunks or something?” he asks, watching Nico like he’s gone crazy. Percy does not seem to expect much, which is definitely something Nico can work with.

“Nah, it’s just us out here,” Nico says, shucking his pants. He’s glad he took off his shoes and socks at the house, because he already knows sand is going to be everywhere. He walks towards the ocean, eyeing the water distrustfully. Once he reaches where the waves are lapping at the shore, he makes sure to barely pause before simply walking straight into the water.

He turns back to Percy, who’s still watching at him like he’s performing some ridiculous trick that never occurred to Percy as a talent of his. Inwardly, he groans. Swimming is not his ideal activity, but it’s the only thing he can think of that Percy might enjoy.

“Aren’t you going to swim?” he asks, trying his best for condescending encouragement that always works on Jason. Percy kind of gives him a narrow-eyed once over and takes off his worthless piece of cloth of a shirt. Funny how heroes respond to condescending challenges.

Watching Percy undo his shorts is actually torture, and Nico faces the water again so he doesn’t have to watch. The sound of Percy entering the water from behind him makes his hair stand on end, for some reason, and Nico realizes just how horribly masochistic this plan was.

Percy dives right in, and why shouldn’t he? This is his home turf. He comes out of the water like a horrifying wet dream (ha) from Nico’s earlier teen years. It’s probably Nico’s turn to have the wide eyed look, but Percy doesn’t seem bothered. “Aren’t you going to swim?” he returns, challenging and smirking. Nico would totally be cool with dying at this exact moment while looking at Percy, dripping and gorgeous in front of him, looking more like himself than he has all day.

“I was waiting for my host to lead, since you’re giving me the tour of the beach and all,” Nico snipes, and he hopes he doesn’t sound as breathless as he feels.

Percy gets a look on his face, and it might have been the wrong thing for Nico to say. He switches that “might” to a “was definitely” when Percy starts making his way towards Nico, arms outstretched.

“What, what, what,” Nico chants as Percy grabs him around the waist and forces him deeper into the water.

“Just doing my host duties,” Percy says coyly before hoisting Nico off his feet. Nico gives a manly squeal that is quickly swallowed by water as his whole head is dunked. “Meet the water, Nico.”

“Stop it! Stop, stop!” Nico cries out as he resurfaces. Percy is laughing next to him, like Nico looking like a drowned rat is the funniest thing he’s seen in years. “I’m going to kill you. You’re going to find out why they call me the Ghost King,” Nico warns.

Percy laughs harder, which is interesting, considering most people tend to look at least a little freaked when he mentions that particular title. Nico settles for splashing as much water as he can into Percy’s face.

Percy chokes on it, for a second, but Nico guess one of the perks of being the son of Poseidon is being unable to drown because he doesn’t even notice the second wave of water to the face. He narrows his eyes at Nico again, his mouth in a quirked smile. “You don’t want to go down this road, Ghost King,” Percy says, and the tone of voice, in turns playful and threatening, goes straight to Nico’s dick.

“Don’t I?” Nico can’t help but say back, giving his best daring grin.

Percy’s smile goes dangerous, and suddenly the water around Nico is moving, swirling around him. Nico realizes every mistake, every bad decision he has ever made, has led to this right here. He is going to drown at the hand of the dude he’s been wanting to make out with since he was twelve.

The water shoots out around him and lands on top of him in an anticlimactic splash. Percy is cackling again, and Nico is feeling more drenched than he had when he was submerged. “You should have seen your face,” Percy chokes out between laughs. “Where’s the skeleton army?”

“Vacation time is really important for the undead,” Nico says, feeling slightly drunk on Percy’s laugh. “Besides, I’ve seen you do some terrible things with those powers.”

Percy gives him an exasperated look. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t do that to you. Not when you give me the best laugh I’ve had in, like, a year,” Percy says, rolling his eyes. Nico’s face is warm, and yeah, okay, he’s blushing. He’s eighteen, just out of a serious adult relationship, and blushing furiously.

After the splash fight, Percy seems content with swimming around where Nico floats. He talks to some of the more curious of the sea life, not really bothering to fill Nico in on the conversation, which is fine by him.

When the sun starts to set, Percy and Nico mutually agree to head in for the day.

“I’m starving,” Percy says, acting more energized than a starving man should. “I haven’t been this hungry in a while.”

Nico snorts and picks up their sandy clothes. “I hope you have something instant in your freezer, because I’m not sure I have the patience to cook.”

“I can cook,” Percy says defiantly, like Nico’s just personally offended his mother.

“I don’t doubt that,” Nico consoles, “but waiting for food to be made sounds torturous.”

Percy snickers. “You’re so skinny, I’m almost afraid that if I don’t feed you the second you’re hungry, you’ll pass out.”

Nico gives him an affronted look. “I’m a growing boy, okay. Give it a couple years, you’ll see.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a lady killer,” Percy agrees, holding the door open for him.

“Ladies, dead or otherwise, aren’t really my type,” Nico disagrees.

“Maneater then,” Percy tries, and Nico snickers. Percy’s eyes widen in surprise, but he seems a lot more relaxed about Nico displaying emotion around him than he had before the fight in the ocean.

“I accept this title,” Nico says with a nod. They drip on the floor, but Percy doesn’t seem to mind. He certainly takes his time getting towels, even with Nico shivering in the air conditioned house. “Thank the gods you have tile.”

Percy rubs his hair in a towel and smiles. He rubs the towel on his arms and body, watching as Nico tries to both cloak himself and dry himself off at the same time. It’s distracting, and Nico kind of wonders if he’ll have lost his mind from sheer lust by the end of this venture. “I’ll make dinner if you want to go shower.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Nico says, because he could use both the hot water and a moment to collect himself. Percy points him off in the direction of the bathroom, in case the sun had bleached his brain and he had forgotten, and stalked off towards the kitchen portion of the open room in nothing but drenched boxers and a towel around his waist. Nico is starting to realize that without the cold ocean water to deter his more teenagerish physical reactions, the descent into a horny puddle is pretty quick.

Getting into the bathroom is easy; figuring out the interesting, octopus shaped knobs that control the water is a bit more of a challenge. It’s all worth it once Nico gets his sandy body under the hot spray of the water, even more so once he got a hand around himself. It isn’t going to take long, something he already knew and has been banking on. His hand speeds up as he thinks about the movement of muscles that made up Percy during their water time, his laugh in the sunlight, and he’s so, so close-

Percy knocks on the door. “Hey, dinner’s ready when you are!”

Nico comes so hard, he practically whites out. His lip stings from where he bit into it to stop himself from making noise, and he knows if he doesn’t say something in a second, Percy might feel obligated to come investigate which is definitely a thought for a different time.

“Out in a second,” Nico manages to croak out. He cleans his mess and takes the fastest shower of his life, not even bothering to try and get all of the sand out of his hair. The door opens in a wave of steam, and Nico quickly grabs a shirt and pair of shorts out of his bag. When he reaches kitchen, Percy is already eating. He gives Nico a shrug like that explains everything, and in a way, it does.

The food is obviously microwaved, and Nico is grateful it’s not something ornate that he would feel guilty about letting get cold. They eat in silence, and Nico is still feeling the zen from his time in the shower, which is why when a thought occurs to him, he lets it slip out.

“How do you even have groceries here?” Nico asks, mouth half full. Percy doesn’t seem to mind his terrible table manners, even if he feels like a heathen for having done something like that. Bianca would have had a fit.

“Normally, I just grab my trusty spear and fish for hours on end,” Percy deadpans. Nico snorts.  
“Did I scare off your kill of the day?” Nico asks.

“Yep. I guess I’ll have to visit the town on the side of the cliffs later,” Percy says mournfully.

“Town?” Nico asks. “How do you even get up there?”

“I usually just swim a beach over and make my way up. There’s a boat in the caves too.”

“Caves?” Nico asks. He’s been in the water all day; surely he would have noticed caves.

“They’re a little ways down,” Percy says. “I’ll show you tomorrow if you want.”

“Sure,” Nico agrees. “Maybe you can take me to town and get some time in with civilization.”

Percy gives him a look and then a lopsided smile. “If you say so.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nico protects Percy from a flirty cashier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dying words will be "what the fuck, 'not my type', what does that even mean," and my grandchildren will all look at each other in confusion. 
> 
> Also, friendly reminder that the 'author takes liberties' tag is a real thing.

That night was uneventful, save for how Nico could hardly sleep. It isn’t unusual for him to experience a bit of insomnia after one of his and Will’s break ups, but this time it had felt even worse. The physical calm he had managed to snag after his time in the shower wore off the moment his head hit the pillow. It was all he could do not to just get up and see if that television in main room had the Netflix.

Morning comes, and now he’s sitting back at the breakfast table, drinking the only thing he could find that was close enough to coffee for him to ingest. It mixes well, but he can’t help but feel he mixed in too much water with the powder. Call him old fashioned, but he prefers the ground stuff Will kept in their cabinets. Even Jason has learned that coffee is necessary when Nico comes to stay.

It turns out being kicked out of his home permanently sucks even more than when it was semi-permanent. Also, Nico has apparently lost the ability to travel to random places with nothing but the clothes on his back and his Stygian blade.

He thinks about this as Percy stumbles his way into the kitchen. To Nico’s horror, he pulls out a water bottle and drinks it right in front of him.

“You don’t drink coffee,” is what comes out of his mouth, despite the fact he’s watching Percy swallow with rapt attention. He’s probably being obvious with this attraction thing, but to be fair, he was sleeping with his last roommate. Not to mention how, during the times when he’s painfully reminded how attractive his best friend is, Nico will give Reyna a silent high five in the kitchen while her shirtless boyfriend makes them coffee and breakfast. He’s out of practice on a lot of things apparently.

“I do not,” Percy confirms. He brightens for a second, and then pauses. “I have instant, but I think you already found it.”

Nico holds the cup up and waves at it. “This? This is not coffee. This is sad, watery powder beans.”

Percy shrugs. “I’ve never liked coffee until recently. I only drink those sometimes.”

“You are an energizer bunny, I know,” Nico tells him. “but I barely got any sleep, and I desire real coffee. Does the cliff town have a coffee shop?”

“No idea,” Percy says brightly. “We can definitely buy actual coffee at the store, though.”

“Thank you,” Nico says and then promptly drops his head to the counter, closing his eyes.

“You look really tired. Why do you think you couldn’t sleep? Change in altitude maybe?” Percy suggests sympathetically.

Nico sighs. “I usually can’t sleep after breaking up with Will.”

He doesn’t have to look up to know Percy is wearing his confused expression. “Do you break up with him often?"

“He breaks up with me pretty often,” Nico corrects.

“That’s kind of shitty of him.”

“He’s right to. I’m not really a good boyfriend,” Nico mumbles, wishing this conversation would end. He looks up to see Percy giving him a sympathetic look and snorts. “It’s fine. He’s more torn up about it than I am, promise.”

“‘Maneater Nico’?” Percy suggests again, and Nico gives off a mixture between a whimper and a laugh.

“Something like that,” he says, and then laughs again. “Really, actually, the opposite of that. But, we should get going. And do something that is anything but this conversation.”

Percy gives him a smile. “Yeah, I know that feeling. Alright, let’s go get you real coffee.”

The dark stone walls that surround Percy’s new home taper slightly closer to the water. They remind Nico of the Underworld, and his father’s home there, with the way they make him feel small. Percy leads him to where the rock wall crashes against the sea, and if Nico had felt small before, he feels absolutely miniature in comparison to the various caves the water has made over time. He fights the urge to turn into the dark and shout words, just to hear them echo back, and follows Percy’s path.

Smaller rocks line the outside of the caves, either jutting and angry looking, or small and smoothed over. The water moves faster here, splitting into various streams as it hits the rocks, and Nico almost slips when he loses his concentration on his footing.

Luckily, Percy has been watching and catches his arm with one hand and one of the sturdier pointed rocks with the other. Nico stumbles his way to the next stepping stone, trying to find his balance, Percy clutching his arm all the while. With a deep breath, he manages to stabilize.

“Shit,” Nico says. “I’m not awake enough for this.”

“You could always jump in,” Percy tells him cheerfully. “Getting smashed up against a rock or seven might wake you up.”

Nico gives him a dark look. “My socks are wet. That’s somehow almost worse.”

Percy just grins, dashing and handsome and still holding onto Nico’s arm. Even with the morning-cold water playing footsie with his poor sneakered feet, Nico feels warm all over. He decides to focus a bit more on his feet than Percy for a bit, and falls into a stride, up until he nearly slams into Percy’s back.

“Why’d you stop-” Nico starts, but stops in the face of the giant mouth of the cave they have apparently entered. A small boat is tied to one of the stagnates, and as the waves flow in, it bobs and bangs against another rock that holds it in place, like a natural dock. Percy gives Nico a grin.

“We found our ride,” he tells Nico before climbing over a couple of rocks to get to it. It doesn’t look like much, dingy and with the smallest motor Nico has ever seen, but Percy practically collapses into it the way most people would on a bed. He doesn’t even have the decency to put the motor on, just unties the rope and moves it to where Nico is still standing.

Percy stops near the edge of his stepping stone and even has the audacity to hold out his hand. Nico feels ridiculous when he takes it; he’s not a lady from the forties who needs his doors opened for him, but Percy’s hand is warm and calloused in his, making him think of swords and kindness. For an unholy second, Nico is afraid he’ll capsize the whole boat, but he manages to climb all the way in without anything too traumatic happening. Percy had, of course, managed without a splash in general, which is surely another perk of being son of the sea god.

The boat moves smoothly enough through the water, courtesy of Percy, and they exit the cave easily. It’s only once they exit the cave and sail out a ways that Nico realizes just how much of Percy’s home is just straight, solid rock. The small bit of beach Percy has is the only one for what looks like forever, and Nico again wonders how Annabeth managed to get all the way out here.

Down in the cove, it had been hard to really see the top of the cliffs that rose above them, but from here, Nico sees nothing but green. Trees, bushes, and other plants blend and bleed together, all deep and heavy greens that make something inside Nico ping with recognition. As a child of Hades, Nico tends to suck the life out of plants, but the energy he can feel vaguely radiating off these is wild and untouched.

He looks at where their shitty boat glides in the blue-green sea water and is taken aback by just how clear it is. It isn’t like he hasn’t been on the ocean like this before; he spent a good amount of time on the Argo II, even if he did get to the party a little late. There’s something about sitting on whitewashed wood seat with Percy Jackson in a clear ocean and circling what is obviously an island of pure, black rock that feels hazy to Nico. The world has taken on a dream-like quality, and Nico fights the urge to pinch himself.

Percy looks just as caught up in his own thoughts as Nico is. Nico shouldn’t be surprised by the fact he can move their tiny boat at the speed they are going without much effort, but he still is, slightly. Sure, over the years, Nico himself has also only grown stronger and more confident in his powers. It makes sense that Percy would be the same way, but considering how strong his powers had been as a teenager, it seems almost unfair. Too many gifts given only means more to sacrifice, Nico has learned.

Finally, the wild starts to calm into something more manageable, and the black stone starts to sink into the sea, until they reach the next beach over. When Percy was talking about it before, he had made it sound like he could just pop on over there and make it back home in the span of ten minutes. In reality, their boat ride seems to stretch out like pulled taffy, and the humidity and raising sun sink into the black of Nico’s clothes with a weight and warmth that make him even more tired than he is.

Percy pushes the motor into the water and struggles to turns it on. When Nico gives him a questioning look, Percy shrugs. “I’m doing Hecate’s job for her,” he says. Nico snorts and settles back into the wedge of space between the hull and his seat.

Once the boat hits shallower waters, Percy climbs out. Nico can see why he’s taken to wearing shorts all the time, what with the warm weather and constant contact with water he has. Nico, however, is wearing his second pair of dark jeans that are definitely too short, and while he already has them rolled up to midcalf, it’s not nearly high enough to avoid getting them wet in the ocean.

Percy doesn’t seem to realize this however, and gives Nico a look when he doesn’t climb out of the boat with him.

“I’m not walking around in wet jeans,” Nico says, crossing his arms. Percy rolls his eyes.

“At least sit towards the back where I was sitting,” he responds, already tugging the boat even further onto the beach. With a little help from his control over the waves, Percy manages to beach the boat, even with Nico inside. Nico climbs out of the boat, this time without a hand to hold him steady, and rewards Percy with a grateful smile.

“Thanks,” he says, eyes squinting in the rising sun. He can just make out Percy’s dumbstruck expression, the one he gets whenever Nico does something even relatively human.

“No problem,” Percy says gruffly and starts walking up the beach without further ado. Nico’s wet shoes have mostly dried in the sun, but he still finds himself envious of Percy’s sandals. When they reach asphalt, however, Percy has to wipe the sand off his feet.

“It’s chafing,” he explains, and Nico is glad he didn’t sell out. His own shoes have sand in them as well, but there are no bright red, angry lines on the tops and sides of his feet, so he considers himself lucky.

Nico follows Percy down the old road, noting the colorful houses and road signs. In the boat, Nico had felt no pressure to talk, like words were unnecessary in the face of much everything else around them was in comparison, but right now, as they get closer to society, the silence feels slightly awkward.

Percy must feel it too, because he attempts conversation first. “So, you and Will break up a lot?” he asks, which is the worst thing he could have possibly asked Nico.

Nico shrugs, scuffing his feet against the ground. “Will is a little insecure, when it comes to me.”

Instead of asking for further clarification, Percy nods. “You are kind of shady.”

With a glare, Nico turns towards Percy, who looks positively stunning in the sunlight. His eyes practically burn Nico when he looks back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean, you know, you’ve always got your own agenda,” Percy says hastily.

“‘My own agenda,’” Nico asks incredulously. “You mean the agenda where I save your life? Or help you in some way?”

Percy frowns and looks away, ahead, where the buildings start to grow and collect together. “You’re never where you’re supposed to be. You just kind of come and go, only helping when it’s convenient for you.”

Nico can feel irritation bleeding into anger. “And searching Tartarus for the Doors of Death? Was that fucking convenient for me?”

The mention of Tartarus makes Percy stop in the street and face Nico. There’s a look on his face that’s haunted, like he’s torn between suspicion and awe. “I never asked you to go there.”

“Of course you did,” Nico says, but all his anger had dried up the moment Percy started looking at him like he’s something to be impressed by. “or else I never would have gone.”

It’s a confession if Nico’s ever heard one, but he underestimated the power of Percy’s obliviousness. Instead, Percy says, “I doubt you’d be a bad boyfriend.”

“What?” Nico leans back slightly, confused.

“You said earlier that he was right to keep breaking up with you, because you’re a bad boyfriend,” Percy explains. “I don’t see how that’s possible, considering the kind of person you are.”

Nico feels a little like screaming for many reasons, because of course Percy is challenging him on how bad of a boyfriend he is. He’s torn between wanting to shout “because I’ve been in love with you and not him” and “want to find out and see?” Instead, he stays silent, turns, and starts walking towards what he assumes is town.

“Nico,” Percy calls, cajolingly. Nico keeps walking. “You don’t even know where you’re going.”

"As long as it’s away from your idiocy,” Nico mutters to himself.

“What? Nico, come on. I didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” he promises.

Nico turns around, waving his arms slightly. “You have no idea what you’re even talking about! You don’t even really know me.”

Percy frowns. “I’ve known you for, what, six years now? We’ve gone through some serious stuff together. I know you better than you think I do.”

The horrifying feeling of wanting to cry and throw a tantrum take Nico, but he lets them go with practiced ease. “You’re naive if you think that,” Nico says darkly, making sure Percy understands exactly how little he knows.

It doesn’t seem to deter Percy at all, because he just walks up to Nico and places his hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good person,” Percy promises him, almost as if he’s reassuring Nico. “You’re loyal to the people you care about, and you do what needs to be done, even when it’s hard. I’ve seen you help people for no other reason than because you could. And I’m sorry for calling you shady.”

There is really nothing Nico can say to that. Percy takes whatever emotion on Nico’s face as a competent enough response, luckily, and claps his hand on Nico’s shoulder. “The store’s this way,” Percy says, starting to walk left of where Nico was going.

Nico follows in silence, preferring to mull over his darker thoughts with Percy slightly in front of him. Percy seems content with this and is even wearing a smug little grin, like he won the prize but doesn’t want to rub it in. It sits on his face as the most natural expression Nico’s ever seen, and he wonders how to take it off.

It turns out he doesn’t have to do much other than have Percy walk into the store.

“Oh, gods,” Percy whines, ducking his head and grabbing Nico’s arm, pulling him quickly into the first isle.

“What?” Nico asks, confused yet again by Percy’s rapid emotional change.

“Collette’s here,” Percy says as if he’s in agony.

“Who?” Nico asks, looking around.

“Collette, the cashier. She always gets really flirty with me when she’s here. It’s really uncomfortable,” Percy explains.

Nico can’t help but snort incredulously. “So you do realize when people flirt with you.”

Percy gives him an odd look. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

It’s suddenly a bit more difficult to swallow, but Nico manages, even with Percy’s eyes on him. “Right. Is she just, I don’t know, gross about it?” Nico pops his head out of the aisle to give the single cashier, despite there being five rows of cash registers, a look. She’s pretty, if completely consumed by her phone, dark hair pulled up into a bun and almond eyes lined with sharp points on the end. “She’s cute.”

Percy huffs. “She’s a kid. She’s not even eighteen yet, and she’s totally shameless.”

Nico snickers, giving Percy a look that’s far too fond, considering he’s still a little bitter about their earlier conversation. “What, told you how good you look shirtless?” he asks jovially.

“She’s never seen my shirtless,” Percy says, affronted.

“That was definitely not the point,” Nico points out.

Percy shuffles his feet and sighs. “Okay, it’s just. She always talks about my butt. Not to my face, but like, she isn’t really quiet about it when she’s talking to that one girl from the bakery.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Well you’re safe today, because those shorts make you look like you have no ass.”

Percy looks even more distraught by this. “I’m a tall dude with a small waist. It’s hard to find clothes that fit everything,” he says grumpily. “Besides, that’s never stopped her from trying to find something.” He looks so worried by the prospect of being ogled that Nico feels a flare of guilt for pretty much constantly wanting to do so. He buries that feeling like a corpse.

Nico can’t really stop the laugh that bubbles up, though. “I’m sorry, sorry,” Nico says through his choked off snickering. Percy is watching him with a growing look of helplessness, and Nico can’t help himself at all. “You’re serious about this.”

Percy nods. Nico sighs.

“Okay,” Nico says. “Alright, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to shop for things. You’re going to buy me the best coffee this store can offer. I’ll go through the check out for you.”

He gives Nico a grateful smile that warms Nico’s insides. “You’re the best.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Nico grumps, the humor he had for the situation suddenly gone.

Percy forces Nico to go back to the front and grab a shopping cart. Nico stalks his way to where the carts are kept, careful to not make eye contact. He can feel the girl’s eyes on him, burning into him, although he’s sure that if he looked at her, she would be just as interested in her phone as she had been the first time he saw her. Quickly, he pushes the unfortunately rickety cart to where Percy is hiding.

Speaking of whom, he’s staring at what turns out to be two different types of paper towels. The goofball actually jumps a little when Nico says his name, and then hurriedly makes a shushing noise with his fingers.

“Oh my gods,” Nico complains, but he keeps his voice down.

They fight over what to get, mostly because Percy seems to think that grabbing whatever looks good constitutes as acceptable grocery shopping behavior.

“My mom did all the shopping back home, and then Annabeth was always so particular, I let her do it,” Percy says when Nico complains. “I guess I just get excited because I don’t have to just sit back home and hope they get stuff I was craving. Now it’s just up in my face, begging me to buy it.”

Nico thinks about a kid version of Percy waiting for his mom to get home with the groceries. If he lets Percy sneak in blueberry Poptarts while he is more focused on which fruit looks the freshest, no one has to know. When they get to the aisle that had a selection of coffees, Nico lets himself actually take time to read the packaging and make a decision. Percy looks a little antsy by the time he decides, and it only gets worse as they realize it’s time to check out.

He gives Percy an expectant look and holds out his hand. “You should give me the money and go hide away from the terrifying Collette.”

Percy looks affronted as he responds, “Teenage girls are terrifying.”

Nico supposes that among their group of friends, that holds particularly true. However, he’s pretty sure Collette the Cashier can’t manage to talk almost anyone into doing anything, has never lead an entire legion of demigods, looked perfectly comfortable fighting on a horse that can go faster than any car, or managed to trick a giant spider lady into making her own prison. “Right,” Nico finds himself agreeing anyway.

When Nico wiggles the fingers of his still proffered hand, Percy fidgets a little and digs into his pockets, pulling out a shiny black card. Nico avoids eye contact as he clasps the card in hand and starts towards the register. “Just wait for me here,” he says as he leaves. “Read a magazine or something.”

The walk to the register is ridiculously short, and for a second, Nico’s suspicious that Collette had heard their conversation. He spots a white earphone cord leading from her ear into her shirt, and the suspicion drifts away. It actually takes her a second to notice he’s standing there, which is something he’s used to. He’s been told he moves too quietly, like death.

“Hi, how are you today?” she asks in a bored tone, watching him unload the cart. Nico can relate.

“I’m just fantastic,” he tells her, dry and emotionless. She doesn’t even seem to notice.

“That’s good,” Collette says. She starts scanning, and the conversation is, thankfully, over.

Up close, Nico can tell she’s around his age, maybe sixteen at the youngest, and he wonders if Percy sees Nico the same way he sees her, too young and childish to even be considered. Not that Nico wants Percy to consider him for anything other than a person he can talk to and let mooch off him.

The total is rung up to a ridiculous amount, and while Nico has mostly adjusted to the inflated economy, he still is grateful he isn’t the one buying. He slides the card and waits for the machine to give him instructions.

“Credit or debit?” Collette asks instead. Nico sighs.

“Hey, goofball,” Nico calls. Percy pops his head out from where he’s creeping and gives Nico a bewildered, betrayed look. He wiggles Percy’s card in the air and asks, “Credit or debit?”

Collette is now staring at Percy with a similar intensity to the one she had for her phone earlier. “Oh. How’s it, Percy,” she says with a salacious grin. It’s a total 180 from the attitude she had before, and it throws Nico for a loop.

“Uh, credit,” Percy answers. He gives Collette a sheepish smile. “Hi, Collette. How are you?”

Nico turns to her, wearing his best brooding, I Am A Child Of Death look. Whatever she was going to say is lost in Nico’s vaguely threatening, “Credit, please.”

“Right,” Collette says, moving faster than she has through the whole exchange. She looks a little nervous. While Nico’s constant interaction with the Seven (Plus Two) has toned down a lot of his antisocial vibes, he’s still the son of Hades. He still inspires a creepy feeling in people, similar to that of being watched while alone.

He tries not to smirk.

“Would you like any cash back?” she asks. While she’s mostly addressing Nico, her eyes are trained back on when Percy is standing at the mouth of the aisle, Cosmopolitan clasped, forgotten, in his right hand.

“Not today,” Nico says, all sharp teeth and fake smiles. She turns to press the button, and he gives Percy a look that hopefully says, “come here, what the hell.” Percy seems to mostly pick up the message because he walks over and into Nico’s space, situates himself so close, Nico can practically smell the sea breeze from here. At least he’s back to having no personal boundaries, Nico thinks to himself, even if he is nervous around strangers now.

Percy’s discomfort makes whatever negative feelings Nico had dissipate and form into a fond protectiveness. He gives Percy a look and then glances down at the magazine. “Are you trying to buy that?”

“What?” Percy asks, looking at Nico with wide, gorgeous green eyes.

“The magazine. Need 200 crazy ways to please your man?” Nico gives him a smirk and watches Percy turn a little pink.

“I think I’ve got it covered,” he grumbles and puts the magazine into one of the cashier stands with the other copies.

Nico grins a little more. “Do you-”

“Would you like your receipt?” Collette interrupts, giving Nico a hard glare. For the first time, her entire attention is one him, and he can practically feel the irritation radiating off her.

Nico is nothing if not contrary. “Hm,” he says, drawing it out. He turns back towards Percy. This seems to irritate Collette more. “What do you think?”

Percy gives him a goofy grin. “I’ll leave the decision in your more than capable hands.”

“Right,” Nico says, making sure to lean against the counter. “You really should keep up with your finances, so I guess.”

Collette angrily presses a button, and the printer buzzes to life. Instead of handing it to Nico, she folds it in half and drops it in a bag. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?” she asks. She gives Percy a smile that makes Nico want to roll his eyes.

Nico reaches out and grabs Percy’s arm. “No, that’s all,” he says, not even bothering to smile now. He snaps up multiple bags and hands a few to Percy, taking whatever is left on the counter for himself. Collette’s “have a good day” is lost on Nico, who’s already halfway to the entrance. Percy jogs to catch up, walking close enough that their groceries bump into each other. Nico’s sure if he looks back now, he’ll see Collette’s mournful look upon Percy’s butt.

Once they exit the store, Percy gives Nico a giant smile. “Dude, that was great. She was so put off,” Percy says cheerily. Nico feels a little less horrible, despite the fact that he and that teenager girl are practically in the same boat. Nico has the advantage of familiarity, though, and the fact that it’s the only difference between them, ignoring gender (which is a whole other can of worms), rankles.

“She was jealous, you know,” Nico says, trying to sound ambivalent about the matter.

Percy gives him a look. “Was she?” he asks.

“Obviously,” Nico answers instantly. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What? Her jealousy?”

“Her assumption that we’re together,” Nico clarifies.

“Oh.” Percy bites his lip in a distracting manner while he considers this. “It really, really doesn’t. Does it bother you?”

Nico’s heart is pounding. He pretends the reason his hands are sweating is because of the heat and adjusts the bags he’s holding. “No,” he says, quietly. “But I’m actually gay, so.”

“So?” Percy says. “I could be bisexual. You don’t know everything about me, either.”

He can’t meet Percy’s eye. His heartbeats double in time. “Are you?” he asks.

“Uh, well,” Percy says, and it’s answer enough. Ice fills Nico’s veins, which Nico accepts as his due punishment. He shouldn’t let himself hope. “I was dating Annabeth for so long, and I only was ever romantically interested in girls before. Guys can be attractive, though.”

Nico laughs humorlessly. “Yeah, you’re preaching to the choir.”

“Want to know a secret?” Percy asks, stopping near the start of the beach. He looks so serious, for a second, Nico is terrified about what he’s going to say. He makes himself nod anyway. “I always thought Leo was kind of attractive in a weird, funny way.”

This is the worst news Nico could ever receive. Leo looks, basically, the exact opposite of Nico, all dark tan skin and bright eyes and smiles. He keeps his expression neutral. “Really?” he finds himself asking. “I mean, I can see it, especially now days. Hazel and Frank are pretty lucky. I don’t think they would have lasted this long without him.”

Percy nods. “How are they, by the way? You’re the only person I’ve spoken to recently, save for Annabeth.”

Nico inwardly breathes out a sigh of relief. He can talk about Hazel and Co. all day. “They’re great. Frank’s in his last year of camp. Hazel’s going to be the only one next year, so that’ll be interesting. I think it’ll be good for her. I mean, they treat her well, practically spoil her, but she’s been in a relationship since she was fourteen. It’ll be good to have space.”

“So have you, right?” Percy asks, placing his groceries in the boat. He holds his hand out for Nico to hold onto as he climbs into the boat once more.

“What?” Nico asks, feeling a little unsettled. He’s hyper aware of his heartbeat again, along with the tingling in his hand as he removes it from Percy’s; pairing that with his focus on settling himself and the groceries in the boat as Percy pushes it back out into the water, he’s having a hard time following.

“You’ve been in a relationship since you were fifteen,” Percy clarifies, climbing into the boat with a ridiculous amount of ease. There’s a surprisingly unsurprising lack of water on his skin, and Nico wonders if it just rolls off him like a duck.

Nico thinks about it. “More or less, but I spent two of those years with mostly my own company.” He gives Percy a look. “And neither Hazel or I have anything on you and Annabeth.”

“We only started dating when I turned sixteen,” Percy counters.

“You were into her way before that,” Nico reminds him. “You were practically dating for a couple years.”

Percy gives Nico an assessing glance. They speed into the deeper sea and watch the black walls grow imposing once more. “I guess, but it’s not really the same. Besides, Annabeth and I were done romantically long before we actually broke up.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. Percy shrugs.

“Annabeth is my best friend,” Percy explains, sounding both loving and slightly hesitant, as if he’s searching for the right words. “and I love her more than I’ve ever loved another person. We’ve been through so much, and she’s such an important part of me, I think even after it was over, we couldn’t even tell. Like, the intensity was there, but the nature of the feelings were different.”

Percy sighs and adds, “And then she told me about Piper.”

“Oh,” Nico says.

“Yeah. It was kind of hard for us to distance ourselves, because it had been just us for so long. Then, when she developed feelings for someone else, and I just wasn't bothered at all." Percy paused. "Not that I'm that jealous of person or anything, but I wasn't even upset, beyond the fact that it meant the end of something I had been so sure would last forever."

"I kind of know what you mean," Nico says, staring at his hands in his lap. His fingers automatically starts to fiddle with the silver ring that adorns his ring finger. “Will is always the one to end it. I let it happen, every time.”

Percy gives him a look. “People love in different ways, Nico. Maybe yours isn’t the same as Will’s." 

Nico snorts. “Oh, I know exactly how I love. Let me tell you, it’s extremely fitting and suitably depressing.”

He looks a little shocked by that. “You’ve been in love before?”

“Uh.” Nico realizes very suddenly he has made a huge mistake. He forces a dry laugh. “Maybe? Who even knows, when you’re a teenager.”

Percy is still giving him a look, but he let’s Nico get away with it. “Well, you’re still a teenager, so I wouldn’t talk too big yet.”

Nico finds himself instantly annoyed. “Hardly. I think I’ve been through more than most adults can claim.”

“Depends on the adult,” Percy says, teasingly.

Nico doesn’t smile, even when Percy aims his startlingly bright playful grin is aimed right at him. “I don’t see any adults to ask here,” Nico says, voice like poison.

“No,” Percy agrees, placidly. “Just two people who saved the world when they were younger.”

“Twice, in your case,” Nico says, a little bitterly. “And I never did anything for the world, not really.”

Percy shakes his head. “You’ve done a lot for the world, Nico, whether you realize it or not.”

Nico is very done with this conversation topic. “Trust me, anything you have to say on the matter has already been said by Jason. Multiple times.”

This is the first time he’s seen Percy show any kind of irritation. “I agree with him then,” he says. His irritation visibly morphs into consideration. “You know, I’ve always thought that Jason’s pretty attractive too.”

His life is a huge cosmic joke. The gods are just fucking with him at this point. “Yeah, he is, if you like the overly serious, white bread look,” he says and immediately feels guilty. “It’s the eyes. And the hair. They’re just so brilliantly bright, you can’t not be attracted to him.”

Percy nods and then looks a little cautious as he says, “You guys have been pretty close for the past couple of years."  

“Yeah,” Nico says, hoping his tone was properly droll enough to portray how obvious that observation was. “He’s my best friend,” Nico admits.

“Oh,” Percy says. He gives Nico another considering. “Have you guys ever…?” The trail off is telling.

“No!” Nico exclaims, horrified. “Have you ever slept with Grover?”

“No, gods no. I love him, but like a brother!” Percy replies, face twisted at the idea of it.

“Exactly! That’s how I feel about Jason,” Nico snaps. “One time, when he and Piper first broke up, we did nothing for three days but watch Disney movies because he would just stare blankly at the wall if we weren’t. I had to literally force him into the shower, force him to eat. He’s been my emotional interpreter and supporter. I could never, ever do anything more with him than cuddle. Platonically.”

Percy is silent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply-”

“I know. It’s fine, I know.” Nico sighs. The boat moves itself into the caves, stopping only to let Nico out at the beginning of the stepping stones. He grabs the groceries, but he knows he’s going to have an issue with carrying them and maintaining his balance. Percy ties up and docks the boat between the little cove in the rocks then climbs his way over to Nico, taking more than half of the groceries. Nico lets him, mostly because he knows he would fall down and drown.

They make their way to the house in silence. The dryad pops her head out, apparently about to greet Percy, but the tension between the two made her visibly stop and retreat. Nico waits until they’ve taken their shoes off and dropped the bags on the kitchen to say something.

Percy beats him to it. “I really am sorry, Nico,” he starts.

“I already said it’s fine,” Nico says, holding his hand up. “You didn’t know.”

“I just don’t want you to think that I only asked that because you’re gay.” Percy says the word like he isn’t quite sure how to pronounce it, and Nico can’t really blame him. It’s not like he has much experience with this kind of thing. “It’s just. I’ve only been here for three months, but I haven’t talked to you in four years. Four years, Nico. The most information I could ever get out of Hazel or Jason was that you were doing fine, that you still traveled, that you were obnoxiously loud when you got drunk at that one party, no matter how much I asked.”

Nico blinks in surprise. “You asked about me?”

“All the time,” Percy says vehemently, obviously frustrated. “No one would ever tell me anything. It’s just common knowledge that you obviously don’t like me now, and then you just show up, right when everyone needs to stay away, and you’re so different.”

“I’m not that different,” Nico says in a small voice, eyes still wide.

“You are though!” Percy’s eyes are slightly wild as he explains. “You used to flinch away or snap if people got too close to you, you know, after Bianca died. You literally let me pick you up yesterday, in the water. That you’re even talking to me right now and not halfway to gods know where is proof you’ve changed. And I wasn’t there for any of it, because you didn’t want me to be.”

Nico sucks in a breath, suddenly terrified and heartbroken all at once. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Percy says, softly. “It’s not like I ever tried to reach out to you directly. Heck, half the reason I even let you stay is because I thought you would get sick of me and leave within a couple hours.”

It’s like a smack to the face. Nico has known for a long time that Percy is the king of obliviousness, but that he thinks Nico hated him is almost too much. He has half the mind to keep it that way, but he can hear Jason in the back of his mind, saying, “If you were ever looking for the right time.” Nico has changed, because for once, he almost agrees.

“I have never hated you,” Nico confesses, sounding embarrassingly emotional. “I worshipped the ground you walked on when I was a kid, Percy, holy shit, you know that. You were the ultimate hero for me, and then Bianca died. I tried so, so hard to hate you, and even when I blamed you, I couldn’t do it. Holding grudges is part of my nature. I am constantly bitter and jealous, always mad about something that happened years ago, and I couldn’t hate you.”

“Then why are we just talking now?” Percy asks.

Nico takes a deep breath. “Don’t you remember my confession?”

Percy looks confused and slightly pink. “Yeah, of course. ‘Not my type’ is pretty hard to forget.”

“Well, I may have been over-exaggerating that bit, and it didn’t exactly go away like magic. Percy, I was so into you, even Cupid pitied my stupid ass,” Nico snaps. Percy’s eyes widen and then he snorts.

“Oh. Still?” he asks, leaning back onto the kitchen counter. “Wow. You know, Annabeth thought you were in love with her for a long time. After your confession, she dropped the whole subject of your love life, even after you started dating Will. Maybe she had some idea.”

“Yeah,” Nico says, sounding bitter. “She’s smart like that, unlike some people.”

“Hey, you could have talked to me,” Percy says defensively. “I wouldn’t have treated you any differently.”

“Honestly, that wouldn’t have made anything better.” Nico sighs. “Jason told me to, a hundred times, for literally years.”

Percy looks a little hurt by that. “I would never do anything to hurt you, not even then. It was kind of confusing, but all I wanted was to be your friend.”

“You would have hurt me anyway,” Nico says gently. “You bringing it up at any point would have been more excruciating than even having to watch you and Annabeth live happily ever after. Which, I genuinely thought you were for a long time, up until you guys broke up.”

Percy says nothing, and Nico takes the time to just look at him.

Nico, since yesterday, has been avoiding looking at Percy for longer than completely necessary, if only to avoid a repeat of his shower exploit the night before, but now he lets himself look. The differences hit him again, as they had the moment he saw him for the first time in four years. His hair is longer, and while it’s not as long as Nico’s own hair that fell to the base of his neck, it’s shaggy and messy, falling to the right and in his eyes. He’s wearing an old Camp Half-Blood tee-shirt, and the faded orange brings out sea green of his gorgeous eyes.

Percy has the beginning of laugh and worry lines, the reminder of how much he’s done and seen. They make Nico feel a huge pulse of deep fondness and desire that scares him, reminds him of being fourteen and watching Percy smile so beautifully at the girl he loved. Nico has always wanted Percy so deeply, like it was implanted in his bones and he can never be rid of it.

While he takes it all in, he watches Percy watch him. Notices the way his eyes linger on the tattoo of Pluto’s astronomical symbol Nico has where his collar reaches his neck, how he smiles at Nico’s rolled jeans. It makes something inside him twist, his heart beating faster, and he can feel the moment they break apart and come back together, to themselves.

Instead of the weight of his confession pinning them down, Nico feels light, like he’s been carrying a heavy burden and has been relieved of it. He guesses, in a lot of ways, keeping his confusing feelings for Percy a secret had been his cross to bear, and now that it’s out in the open, he can toss it aside.

Percy isn’t looking at him with disgust, which was one of Nico’s worst fears.

“I think we’ve had enough heavy conversation for one day,” Percy says. “Want to head to the beach?”

Nico feels lighthearted enough to nod. “Yeah, sure.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which emotions are difficult, Nico gets an ouchie, and more conversations happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A peace offering for my solangelo lovers out there (because I just cannot seem to fix his characterization in this fic): During Will and Nico's first Christmas, Nico had been going through the obligatory Music Is My AntiDrug stage that all Emo Kids™ have to go through. Will got him a used iPod that Nico adored, even if he didn't know that when he connected his iPod to Will's computer for updates and to add music, Will could see all of his playlist names. Most of them were things like "if i had to pick a lady", which was mostly filled with Beyonce, and "kill a man music", but one day Will found a playlist that simply said "songs for will". Granted, the majority of them were love songs from various pop punk bands, but [one song in particular](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYzM6vSmb1A)  really struck him. 
> 
> Also, that corniness tag is a real thing.

Nico actually was able to sleep after they finally came in from the beach. Nico has never been a confident swimmer, but Percy being able to save him without risk to himself was a huge comfort. At one point, together, they had managed to build a little sandbar where the water only came to Nico’s knees. Of course, being 5’9” to Percy’s solid 6’ meant it barely came to his shin, but he wasn’t bothered by it. He stayed in the deeper end, talking to fish, who were surprisingly friendly despite how he apparently gave off a vibe of death, even to sea life.

“It’s kind of true,” Percy had said, teasingly. “Someone told me once you smelled like blood.”

“Blood of my enemies, maybe,” Nico had replied, but with his sopping hair in his face and his scrawny body out in the sunlight for once, he probably had looked far from frightening. Percy seemed to agree judging by the way he snickered.

In any case, by the time they had gone inside, Nico was exhausted. Nearly forty-eight hours without sleep and spending more than half of those in the water had drained Nico of any and all energy. The good news is he wakes up feeling actually well rested. He actually can’t remember the last time he felt like this, warm and content to just stretch out in bed for a good few minutes.

Eventually he forces himself up to the kitchen and brews coffee in a hazy daze. It takes him a few minutes of watching liquid drip into the coffee pot Percy had bought him before he realizes he can’t hear Percy in the house at all.

Alarm flares through him, pulsing and hot, and Nico’s first thought is he left me. But this is Percy’s place, and he’s not shown any desire to leave. Has he? Nico can’t even remember, and everything in him says he’s alone, he can barely sense Percy’s energy close to him. He clings to it, finds himself following it out the front door and to the beach.

It takes him till he reaches the palm tree to realize the awkward pale dolphin-shaped thing swimming in the water a ways off is Percy. He nearly collapses with relief. Giving the palm tree a look, he asks cautiously, “Do you mind if I sit here?”

The dryad doesn’t bother to answer, and he takes it as a tentative positive. Instead of immediately plopping down, he walks back to the house, pouring himself a cup of coffee. When he returns to the tree, the dryad is in a more physical form and watching Percy. She doesn’t even look at Nico as he plops in the limited amount of shade the tree offers. For a cove surrounded by tall walls, there is sure a ridiculous amount of sun.

He takes a sip and watches Percy, not wanting to break the silence lest the dryad changes her mind and decides he needs to leave again.

“He didn’t speak to me for the first few days he was here,” the dryad comments idly. Nico, who has sunken into a meditative state and been focused almost entirely on his coffee up to this point, jumps a little at the sound of her voice in the otherwise silent morning. “And then, I guess he realized I was here, because he spoke to me for hours. All the time.”

Her voice echos a longing Nico is all too familiar with. He finds himself watching her blue tinted face with sympathy, which is starting to be another running theme in his life, right along with irony, death, and the crippling feeling of loss.

“You like him,” Nico comments. The dryad’s cheeks color darker, which is definitely something Nico does not want to think about. Instead, he looks back out into the water where Percy is slowly making his way back. “I don’t blame you.”

“Humans are terrifyingly ugly,” the dryad protests. “But he has a light in his soul.”

“I know,” Nico tells her, bitterly. “Trust me.”

It’s the dryad’s turn to look at him. “You love him.”

And apparently Nico’s turn to blush. “I used to. Now, he’s just a good friend.”

The dryad snorts in derision. “Love does not go away. It transforms, sometimes, into something tamer or even into hatred. That girl who came here, she still loves him. She yells like she loves him.”

“Is yelling a good indicator of love?” Nico asks dryly.

The dryad nods. “She was worried because he wouldn’t talk to her. He stopped talking to me for days after she left.” She turns to glare at Nico. “And then you show up. He hasn’t had time to talk to me with you drooping and brooding everywhere.”

“I have not been broody.” Nico rocks brooding. It's his specialty.

“You look so sad with your black clothes and death smell. Like cut flowers in water,” the dryad tells him in disgust. Something in his expression makes her own soften. “He likes you better than me.”

“Oh,” Nico says, stupidly, because what else can he say? “I think you’re a very nice palm tree. Probably his favorite.”

She blushes again. “Really?”

“Definitely.”

She gives him another appraising look. “You’re okay too, I guess. I’m still better conversation, though.”

“No doubt,” Nico says, and they lapse back into silence, watching the waves crash and Percy grow as he gets closer.

Percy rises out of the water, unnaturally dry and with swim trunks leaving next to nothing to the imagination. He grins at Nico and the dryad, jogging over, not even having the decency to look tired or like he’s just swam ridiculous amounts. By the time he reaches them, he’s not even vaguely damp anymore, hair in its usual floppy, windswept glory and green eyes bright.

“You’re awake,” he tells Nico, like Nico hasn’t had a cup of a coffee and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between asleep and awake.

“Good observation,” Nico says back. The dryad makes a noise similar to that of wind through leaves. “Willy and I were just talking about how you looked like you were trying to swim an island over.”

Percy just grins brighter. “Trying to get away from all the horrible company I’ve had the past few days.”

“Didn’t work out too well for you,” Nico replies. “You came back.”

“Maybe I didn’t want you to worry.” Percy must see something on Nico’s face, because his grin drops a little. “You weren’t worried, were you?”

“You should tell me next time you decide to evaporate and become one with the ocean,” Nico snarks. Percy’s smile goes soft.

“I do that every morning, actually. It’s a requirement Poseidon forces on all his children,” Percy responds, but he just looks fond. “I think it’s probably a better one than Hades’ requirement his children wear black.”

Nico shrugs, looking down at his black pajamas. His shirt is one of Will’s older ones, too large in the shoulders and worn down. “I have white polkadots on my pants,” Nico protests weakly.

Percy rolls his eyes and offers Nico a hand up. He then turns to the dryad, only to find she’s back to hiding in her tree. “Good morning, Wilhelmenia,” he says goodnaturedly. He attempts to catch Nico’s eye, a question written on his face, but Nico pretends he doesn’t notice and starts heading back to the house.

Nico plops onto the couch the moment they get back, curling his knees to his chin. He suddenly misses Jason and Hazel like a blow to the solar plexus. They haven’t bothered calling him once, which is seriously unlike them. He finds himself a little worried about how they are, wondering what they’re doing right now. Hazel will be back at camp, which might explain why she hasn’t tried to contact him, but Jason, what with him being in the same vicinity as Percy, would have been trying at least once a day.

At least Percy seems to pick up on his mood and gets dressed before sitting in one of his ugly, weathered green chairs. “You look a little sunburned,” he tells Nico.

He tries not to feel too irritated by that. “I’m pale. It happens.”

“We should stay inside today,” Percy continues. Nico shrugs, and that’s decided.

Unsure of how to spend the rest of their day inside, they play cards on the shaded cement deck, the cards getting particularly beat up when they attempt Slap Jack.

Nico crosses his legs as he looks at his hand. “Got any 3’s?”

“Go fish,” Percy says, using his hand to make a casting motion. Nico smiles, because honestly, how can another person be so adorable and so attractive at the same time? He isn’t sure he’ll ever understand.

Nico is drawing a card that is definitely not a 3 when Percy suddenly puts his cards on the ground face down. Nico raises an eyebrow, but Percy looks a strange mix of determined and hesitant.

“I have a question,” Percy states. Nico makes a wave with his hand, and he continues. “You kind of… Implied earlier that you still like me. Do you? I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve changed over the course of the past four years. You certainly have.”

Nico can’t help but wish for something terrible to happen; a monster, being struck by a freak lightning storm, Willy’s singing: anything to avoid this conversation. When it becomes apparent nothing is coming to Nico’s aid, he bites the bullet and tries to find the words. “It doesn’t work like that,” he says finally, defeated.

“How does it work then?” Percy asks softly, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask. Something inside Nico crumbles and remakes itself.

Nico puts his cards on the ground as well and curls around his knees. “Okay, so, you know when you have a favorite tv show?” Percy looks a little confused but nods. Nico pushes on. “There are some episodes you like, some you don’t, and others you can’t even decide, right? Even when you don’t like an episode, it’s still your favorite show, and you’re still going to want to watch the next one.”

“Are you saying I’m your favorite tv show?” Percy asks, face a little pink and a hint of teasing in his voice.

“I’m saying it doesn’t matter how you change,” Nico says quickly, rolling his eyes like his face isn’t on fire. “I will always want to know you.”

Percy looks flattered, all warm eyes and smiling at Nico like he’s said something that isn’t even the slightest bit creepy. “I want to know you too,” Percy says.

They sit in silence for a moment, Nico staring out at Percy’s small backyard with an irritated look on his face and Percy watching him. Nico pretends he doesn’t feel Percy’s eyes on him, pretends Percy isn’t even there, which is probably why he reacts the way he does when Percy’s hand reaches out and touches his shoulder.

Jerking back violently, Nico loses his balance and flings back an arm to catch himself. He scrapes his palm on the rough concrete, but he doesn’t fall back all the way.

“Sorry!” Percy is saying, his hands out in front of him as if he had been about to grab Nico himself but had held himself back. Nico is mildly glad he had, if only because Percy catching him only would have added insult to injury at this point.

“It’s fine,” Nico says, already moving himself to a more stable position. He looks at his dimpled palm, the weight of his fall enough to rearrange his skin to the rough topography of the concrete. Apparently a particularly sharp piece of protruding shell had even managing to break skin, and Nico is realizing just how domesticated he actually is now days. “I’m just an idiot.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Percy says. He reaches out and takes Nico’s hand, pulling it away from where Nico had been staring at it and consequently pulling Nico closer to him.

“It’s really okay,” Nico squeaks wanting to jerk his hand back, put space between them, lean in closer. Percy’s hand is cupping his own like he’s fragile, important but breakable, and Nico’s skin is tingling for reasons other than the small cut on his palm.

“I’ve been thinking,” Percy says, finally looking back at Nico, “about how sometimes you would do things for no discernable reason, and I think I get it now. It was for me, right? You did those things because you…”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Nico says. He’s too breathless to sound bitter, because Percy’s thumb is rubbing the back of his hand idly, moving back and forth with such a light tough, Nico has to fight off shivers.

Percy’s staring at his face, and his eyes drop to Nico’s mouth. Suddenly, time slows. His heart ratchets up a notch, and he has to lick his lips to assure himself that he doesn’t have a wound there as well. Watching Percy’s eyes follow his tongue is surreal, and Nico realizes something.

Percy is attracted to him, and going by the way he’s staring at Nico’s mouth, he wants to kiss him. Percy Jackson wants to put his mouth on Nico’s. The blood in Nico’s veins turns into a river of fire and Nico’s skin tingles with warmth. Percy’s eyes look up from his mouth, green eyes bright. He seems to see something in Nico’s face that makes him swallow. Nico cannot breathe, the air is so tight between them.

“Willy says Annabeth still loves you,” Nico blurts, ruining what could have been a fantastic opportunity to lay one on the gorgeous idiot still leaning into him. Of course Nico has to shoot himself in the proverbial foot and then shove said foot down his throat.

Percy’s eyebrows furrow. “She does,” he says. He seems to realize what Nico means a second later. “She’s not in love with me, though. She likes Piper. A lot. Actually, I’m pretty sure she came here just to rant about how stupid Piper is being about this whole thing,” Percy explains, words jumbled with a nervousness that Nico’s never seen on him before.

“Piper likes to complain to Will, too,” Nico says, and he sees whatever emotion Percy had been feeling a second before wither out and die in his eyes at the mention of Nico’s ex.

Nico is officially the dumbest human on the planet. He hopes his father strikes him down out of pity and resentment soon, because he really deserves it for putting that kind of expression on Percy’s face.

Percy leans back, and Nico feels like the influx of air crushes his lungs inward. Hands are removed from Nico’s skin. “We should get you inside and clean that scrape,” Percy tells him, tone even as he rolls onto his feet. Nico’s heart aches, but he takes Percy’s proffered hand.

Nico pulls his hand out of Percy’s quickly once he’s standing. “I don’t really think it needs that,” Nico says, more aggressively than he meant. He starts towards the house, Percy beside him in a second. They don’t speak as they enter or as Nico walks into the kitchen and grabs a clean dish cloth. He runs it under warm water for a second, watching as the water rainbows out for a second, and then dabs at the raw part of his palm.

Percy avoids looking at him. “I think I have some Neosporin around here, somewhere,” he says, forced casual as he opens the first set of cabinets close to him. He doesn’t seem to find anything because he moves to the next set.

Nico watches, hates himself, and holds the rag a little tighter into his stupidly stinging hand. “I don’t need it,” Nico grunts out.

This only makes Percy look a little more vigorously. “It’s in one of these,” Percy says, like Nico hadn’t spoken.

“I said I don’t need it,” Nico snaps.

“Yeah, but that’s ridiculous, so I ignored it,” Percy snaps back. His head is buried in a cabinet, and it comes out slightly muffled, but clear enough to ignite Nico’s irritation.

“Would you stop that?” Nico growls out, moving over to where Percy is trying to climb the kitchen counter and look at a top shelf. He grabs Percy’s shirt, tugging him back onto his feet. Only, when he pulls, Percy loses his balance and suddenly Nico’s whole front is pressed against Percy’s back.

He sucks in a sharp breath, ignores the warmth that spreads through him as he keeps Percy steady enough to regain his balance. Percy doesn’t move, stiff against him. Nico practically throws himself across the room with how fast he forces himself away from Percy. “Sorry,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound as breathless as he feels.

“It’s fine,” Percy replies quickly. He’s still standing in the same position, staring at one of the drawers. He opens it and plucks out a small ziplock bag. Inside it is the familiar bars of ambrosia, reminding Nico of Camp Half-Blood and Chiron’s kind smile aimed at Percy. A box of Neosporin sits innocuously next to it, unopened.

Percy throws it at Nico, who catches it absently. “I’m going to go shower. I still smell like ocean,” Percy tells him, voice resigned and small in a way that should never come from someone like him. Nico says nothing about how he always smells like ocean and watches him go.

He takes out the tube of ointment and fumbles with the cap. It doesn't sting, but the texture is unpleasant. Nico puts the tube back in the box, placing it on the counter once closed. Quickly, he flips through the drawers and finds the silverware. Grabbing a spoon, he moves back to the sink, turning it on with ease. Using the dip of the spoon, Nico makes the water spray out enough for a rainbow. One handed, Nico awkwardly feels around for a drachma, finding one in another drawer that seemed to empty of anything else but the coins. He flicks it into the water, repeating something he's said dozens of times with a practiced ease.

“Show me Jason,” he practically begs the goddess.

Luckily, Jason seems to be having a day at home, because he answers almost immediately. “Nico, is that you?” His electric blue eyes are wide and worried; they soothe Nico almost instantly. “What the heck happened to you? You look freaked.”

Nico figures he should say it quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. “I think I may have accidentally almost kissed Percy.”

“What?” Jason looks slightly bewildered.

“He was just so close, and he’s always smells so nice, you know,” Nico babbles. The towel in his hand flaps wildly as he talks. “It’s a real test on my restraint to have him up in my face and staring at my mouth like he might let me kiss him.”

“Nico,” Jason says calmly. “Slow down. Start from the beginning." 

Nico swallows, takes a deep breath, and starts over. “I told him I liked him. That I used to love him, I mean, and then he started asking questions and I just kind of.” He makes another rapid hand motion that Jason watches with amusement.

“And this made you almost kiss him?” Jason asks.

“No,” Nico admits, blushing. “His hands were doing this thing, and he was acting like he liked that I like him.”

“Do you like him?” Nico looks up at the question, eyes wide. Jason doesn’t look accusing, just patient and accepting, the way he’s always been. Nico’s never loved and hated him more.

Nico shrugs dismissively, eyes darting away. It’s answer enough for Jason, but he answers anyway. “It doesn’t matter. I’m attracted to him, though. Painfully so. And he’s just gotten out of a relationship, so it makes sense if he wants to, you know, experiment.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Jason argues.

“You did,” Nico says back. He instantly regrets it, especially when Jason turns slightly pink.

“I thought we decided to never talk about that again,” Jason groans out.

“I know, I know. Sorry,” Nico says, rubbing his face. “I just don’t know what to do. Maybe I should leave.”

Jason’s worried look returns with a vengeance. “Are you sure? If you leave now-”

“I know how it’ll look,” Nico snaps, “but I can’t really think of an alternative.”

Jason sighs. “We can have a Seven Meeting tomorrow, if you want to. It gives you a reason to leave without seeming like you’re abandoning him, and it’ll give you time to get your bearings, maybe figure some things out, if you want to hang out for a day or two, as well.”

Nico feels himself calm down as Jason speaks. Talking to Jason is like this now, calming and comforting. He looks at his friend’s face, noticing the little differences. “How are you?”

“What?” Jason asks, taken aback. “I’m fine.”

“You look tired.”

“Gee, thanks.” Jason snorts. “I’m fine, it’s just Reyna. She’s been really busy recently. I’ve been worried. Not to mention, you haven’t been answering anyone’s IM’s,” Jason adds accusingly.

Nico frowns. “Because I haven’t gotten any.”

Jason’s frown matches Nico’s own. “Hazel and I have been trying to call you for the past two days.”

“Why wouldn’t it go through then? It’s not like I’m lacking in water,” Nico tells him. “I’ve even gone to the beach.”

“I can tell. You’re pink,” Jason teases. He makes a humming noise. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Probably something Percy did. You know how he hasn’t been answering IM’s either.”

“Yeah,” Nico says, uncertain.

“Alright, so,” Jason says. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Nico agrees.

Jason hesitates. “Do you want me to invite Will?”

Nico bites his lip. “He’s always invited. It’d be dumb to cut him off from his friends just because we broke up,” Nico says.

“He and Piper have been hanging out a lot,” Jason tells him.

“As to be expected.” Nico rolls his eyes. “Have the rumors started about how mean and cruel I am yet?”

“You know I wouldn’t tolerate them if they had,” Jason tells him loyally. “But Will isn’t like that. I think he misses you. You should call him.”

“I’d rather not,” Nico says. “I’m really confused right now. Making him sad wouldn’t help.”

“You were friends with him first,” Jason reminds him.

“Yeah,” Nico says, frowning.

“Alright, alright,” Jason says, raising his hands up in surrender. “Stop the pouting. I’ll let you go, and pass the message along to Hazel. Try calling her later.”

“Will do,” Nico says.

“Love you, man,” Jason says, and flickers out.

“You too,” Nico mumbles. “Miss you.”

Nico removes the spoon and sighs. He uses the running water to wash out the small blot of blood from the rag, careful to keep his palm from getting wet, and peaks out down the hall, trying to see if Percy is done with the shower yet.

Right as he looks, the bathroom door opens, revealing Percy, wearing nothing but pants and a towel draped over his shoulders. They make eye contact for a second, Percy laughably freezing in place. He hesitates for only a moment before walking over to the kitchen and grabbing a water bottle out of the fridge.

“Save any hot water?” Nico asks weakly.

Percy takes a drink and smiles at Nico in a way that makes Nico feel like he’s been forgiven for something. “Yeah, man, help yourself.” Percy frowns and tacks on, “How’s your hand?”

Nico holds up his pink, shining palm. “I told you it wasn’t bad,” he says, already walking to the bathroom. After locking himself in, he lets his face fall into his hands, and for a second, he just leans against the doorway, rubbing his eyes. Nico moves his fingers into his hair and scratches his scalp, forcing himself up out of his slump and into the shower.

There is hot water left, but Nico can barely feel it. His dick his half hard between his legs, and he knows if he actually did anything about it, it wouldn’t take long, but now that he knows Percy wants him back, it feels a little weird to jerk off in their shared shower. Ignoring his arousal, he quickly cleans himself up and switches the water to cold to rinse. By the end, he’s shivering and clawing for a towel, berating himself for not bringing a change of clothes into the bathroom.

He exits the bathroom only to find himself in the reverse position of earlier, Percy staring at him as he stands, naked but for a towel. Percy looks like he’s swallowed his tongue, and everything Nico had tried to wash away in cold water comes back twice as strong as green eyes settle on him. Percy breaks the spell by looking back at what looks like a computer that he has resting on his lap, and Nico moves to his room and shuts the door.

Lasting a day without jumping Percy is going to be a test of Nico’s will he isn’t sure he’ll pass. Nico throws on clothes at random, settling on black gym shorts and a shirt with white wings on the back he had received from Hazel his last birthday. He exits his room and walks into the living room, plopping on the couch as he had that morning.

Percy, who had been staring at the ancient computer in his lap, looks up for only a second then goes back to painstakingly typing out words with his forefingers. Nico’s attraction to the idiot takes the backseat for a second. “What the hell are you doing?” Nico asks, horrified.

Nico was stuck in a hotel for seventy years once, okay; he isn’t an expert at new technologies by any means, but Will had introduced him to multiple modern advances in their time together. He knows what typing on a computer is supposed to look like, and it is not whatever Percy is trying to do, finger typing one key at a time.

“Writing,” Percy says, voice in a fake cheer.

“That looks painful. Why are your wrists twisted like that?” Nico asks. He finds himself standing, only, the moment he does, Percy grabs the screen of the laptop and brings it close to his body protectively. He watches Nico like Nico is going to attempt to snatch it from him.

“I know how to type,” Percy says quickly. “I just make fewer mistakes this way.”

Nico eyes him dubiously. “Show me then,” Nico challenges.

Percy, true to form, responds with narrowed eyes. He clicks around on the screen for a second, and then puts his hands on the keyboard. He holds his arms up awkwardly, as if he doesn’t trust the computer to hold his weight, and starts pecking with his pointer fingers again. Nico makes a choked noise in the back of his throat, and Percy outright glares.

“I may have missed a couple of computer classes,” Percy concedes, but doesn’t sound happy about it. Nico snorts.

“Here,” he says, moving over to where Percy is sitting. “Put the computer on the table instead of in your lap like that.”

“But then I can’t reach it from the chair,” Percy complains but aquicises.

“Sit on the floor then,” Nico replies, kneeling down when Percy does so. Percy crosses his legs, his bare ankles hairy up until his pale feet start. Nico forces himself to focus instead on Percy’s wrists. “Okay, do what you were doing before. Now, lower your arms.”

Percy looks at him like he’s crazy, and Nico tries not to laugh. He grabs Percy’s arms, bending them into a position that looks both relaxed and easy for keyboard access. He notices the screen has been changed to a blank word document and wants to roll his eyes, but Nico knows that if Percy’s writing had been on the screen, he probably wouldn’t have been able to help himself.

“Okay,” Nico says, once he’s pleased with Percy’s arms. He moves to sit behind Percy, placing his hands on top of Percy’s on the keyboard. His arms aren’t nearly as long as Percy’s, his hands not as big, but Percy’s skin is warm against his and he can’t really be bothered with how small Percy makes him look in comparison.

With his fingers on top of Percy’s, he starts typing out his name. “You use the fingers closer to the letters to type it out, instead of just those two fingers,” he says, leaning down slightly from where he kneels at Percy’s back. Nico tries to level his head with Percy’s and not focus on how far away his mouth is from Percy’s skin.

Soon, they eventually get “Nico di Angelo” written onto the screen. Percy makes a disgruntled noise when they start working on his own name.

“I can’t see the keyboard this way, though,” he tells Nico.

“You’ll memorize it,” Nico promises. “It’s not hard. It only took me a couple weeks, and I don’t really even like typing on computers. Writing feels more real, you know?”

“Yeah,” Percy says. “I guess.”

They make it through Percy’s name and start with Annabeth’s. Percy has an issue with reaching for the backspace, but other than that, he catches on fairly quickly.

“I’m pretty quick when it comes to memorizing movements,” Percy says, leaning away to look Nico in the face. He wiggles his fingers in Nico’s way, and Nico smiles back.

Percy is staring at him, reminding him of the few times Percy saw him smile, when he first arrived. “You’re a natural,” Nico says, trying not to ruin the moment by making it weird.

“Comes with being born in this century, probably,” Percy says sarcastically.

“Hey,” Nico says, faking offense. “It only took me a couple weeks to learn.” He avoids mentioning it was Will who taught him, and Percy doesn’t ask. He turns back to the computer and starts typing, slowly, on his own.

“I’m not sure if I like this,” Percy complains. “It takes a while.”

“You’ll get faster if you practice.” Nico laughs at the Percy gives him.

“I’m not exactly a patient dude,” Percy reminds him.

“Trust me, I know,” Nico says, still snickering. “But you’re already getting the hang of it. Maybe you can wait it out, this once, instead of doing what you always do.”

“Which is?” Percy asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Whatever you want, damn the consequences,” Nico answers smoothly. Percy snorts.

“I do not,” Percy contests. “I’m always worried about my friends.”

“And if you die in the struggle, who cares, right?” Nico sounds bitter even to his own ears.

“Look who’s talking,” Percy responds.

Nico turns a look on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nico, you voluntarily walked into Tartarus to find the Doors of Death,” Percy reminds him. "That's not exactly a mark in the 'Has Good Sense of Self-Preservation' column.”

“That was hubris,” Nico responds. "I thought I could make it through."

“Or for me,” Percy says, looking at Nico’s eyes. Nico feels his face flame.

“Or for you,” he finds himself agreeing. Percy’s eyes drop to his mouth and back up, so fast, Nico could almost have missed it. He didn’t, however, and now he finds his own eyes drawn to Percy’s mouth.

They’re too close, Nico kneeling behind him with his arms still casually draped over Percy’s, head right next to his too. He can see lines of blue in Percy’s eyes, watches as his pupils dilate.

Nico wants so badly to just lean in, damn the consequences, but he knows that this could be the result of many things for Percy. Nico needs to be sure of what he wants before he asks that of Percy, has to work his way inside out, same as he always has. He wonders if he can give up touching Percy like he has been, if he can go back to ignoring him if he turns out to want too much, like he had before, when he was a kid.

“I’m going to a Seven Meeting tomorrow,” Nico murmurs, the words practically passing in a breath between them.

Percy nods, looking slightly downtrodden. “Okay.”

“I’ll come back,” Nico promises.

“Okay,” Percy agrees.

“You could come,” Nico offers.

Percy looks him in the eye for a moment, then, to Nico’s surprise, pulls away. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Percy says quickly. He has a cagey look about him, like Collette has just randomly appeared in the sitting room and asked for Percy’s hand in marriage.

“Okay,” is what Nico says. His doubt is obvious in his voice, but Percy pretends to be focused on practicing his typing.

Nico’s heart sinks. What if Percy doesn’t actually want to be with him? Does Nico want Percy to want that? What Nico wants right now is to go back to feeling as he had earlier this morning, content and warm. He pulls himself away from Percy completely, moving back to the couch.

They sit in mutual silence for a good ten minutes, Percy practicing his typing, and Nico staring absently at the ceiling as he thinks. After another minute, Nico asks, “Do you know the time?”

Percy looks at the sinking sun. “Probably 5 or 6,” he answers.

Nico stands. “I think I’m going to try Hazel.”

Percy’s head snaps up. “Uh, okay. It might not work though.”

He gives Percy a curious look. “Yeah, Jason said something about that. Did you know we’ve all been trying to IM you for the past three months?”

“Oh,” Percy says, looking touched. “Really?”

“You know, I’m starting to see why Annabeth calls you ‘Seaweed Brain’,” Nico says, rolling his eyes.

Percy looks confused instead of offended though. “You spoke to Jason.”

“Yeah,” Nico says, waving a hand dismissively. “If I didn’t call him, I knew he would end up trying to come out here and make sure everything was fine. He’s like an overbearing mom sometimes.”

Percy gives him a lopsided grin. “He just cares about you. I’m glad he’s at least been a good friend to you, even if I haven’t been.”

“To be fair,” Nico comments, “I never wanted to be your friend.”

Percy grins. “Yeah, I know that now, but I still could have been a little more observant.”

Nico waves him off. “Shut up, I’m going to go talk to my sister and avoid this conversation from repeating.”

“You can’t run away from the truth, Nico,” Percy calls after him. Nico smiles goofily at the empty kitchen for a second before grabbing his spoon and another drachma.

He tosses it into the water with a plop, asking for Hazel.

It takes a second, but she eventually answers. “Nico! Oh, thank the gods! I’ve been worried about you,” she accuses.

“I know,” Nico says. “I’m sorry for making you worry. Everything’s fine here, even if Percy is slowly turning into a crazy person.”

“Hey!” Percy calls from across the room.

“Stop eavesdropping!” Nico snaps back.

“Fine,” Percy says, “I’ll just go write in my room then.”

“Hi, Percy!” Hazel calls.

Percy walks away like he hasn’t heard her. Nico looks at Hazel in confusion. She just looks hurt and a little lost.

“I guess he isn’t ready to talk to me yet,” she says, sounding sad.

“Give it time,” Nico says, still looking at the door Percy went into. He turns back to his sister with a soft smile. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good! Frank and I are back at camp, and it’s been weird not having Leo underfoot all the time, asking if he can take apart the controller to make it better,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“You miss it,” Nico accuses, and she giggles.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I do. Frank’s always a little testy after we get back from Leo’s. I think it’s sex withdrawal.” She whispers the last part, fanning herself slightly.

Nico laughs. “Or he just misses his boyfriend?”

“That too,” Hazel agrees. Her expression darkens with worry slightly. “How are things there?”

“I already said they were fine,” Nico says, with a look. She gives him a matching look that reminds him how related they are.

“Is it really?”

Nico narrows his eyes. “Did you talk to Jason?”

Hazel looks away before returning his look. “I may have spoken to Jason,” she admits, “but it’s just because he’s worried!”

“You guys are the worst kind of gossips,” Nico bitches, suddenly sour.

“It’s just because we care,” she argues.

“If you cared, you’d give me the space I need and not talk about me behind my back like that. I obviously don’t want to talk about it right now,” he snaps back.

“Well, alright then. We’ll just talk later,” Hazel says angrily. Her image disappears and fades out, the sink splashing water in his face, as if it’s angry in his sister’s stead.

Suddenly another face pops up in the water, and Will appears.

“Oh,” Nico says, surprised. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Will greets, sheepishly.

“How are you?” Nico asks, awkwardly.

“I’m good,” Will answers. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Nico admits.

Will laughs suddenly. “Are you wearing my pants?”

Nico shrugs. “They’re the only shorts that even slightly fit me.”

“I want those back,” Will tells him, teasingly.

“Do you?” Nico asks with a coy smile.

“I could probably deal with the rest of you coming back too,” Will tells him, smile soft. Nico feels something in him settle, the way only Will has ever been able to do for him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nico answers honestly. “You know it’s not.”

Will looks sad, but he nods. “I know. It’s just… This apartment is so weirdly large when you’re not here. And I keep thinking I hear the water running, and sometimes I tell you to save me some hot water, but it’s never you.”

Nico laughs, but it sounds sad. “You’re the one who uses up all the hot water.”

“I object to that,” Will says haughtily.

“I really do miss you too, you know,” Nico says. “I had to teach P- My friend how to type today. It was a disaster.”

Will looks at him. “Where even are you? I’ve been wondering. Jason and Hazel won’t tell me shit.”

“They’re loyal like that,” Nico says, feeling guilt well up in him. He feels bad about how he ended things with Hazel. He inwardly sighs.

“I figured I’d just call you myself,” Will says. He looks at Nico expectantly.

“I’m kind of out of country,” Nico says with a forced, nonchalant shrug.

“Staying with your friend?” Will asks, eyebrow cocked.

Nico gives him a smile. “Jealous, are we?”

“Always,” Will promises. “Can’t seem to keep the hot boys off you.”

“Well, you couldn’t keep one hot boy off me, at least,” Nico says with a smirk.

Will laughs. “Like you’re any better.”

Nico places a hand over his heart. “I have so much self control.”

“Not from what I remember,” Will tells him, coyly.

“Maybe I never thought I had to control myself with you,” Nico says, and something about it must fall short of humorous, because Will gives him a narrowed-eyed look.

“Really, now.” Will places his chin on his palm. “Are you practicing self-control right now?”

“I-” Nico hears a door slam and whips around.

“What? Nico?” Will asks.

“Everything’s fine, sorry,” Nico says. “I should probably go.”

“Okay,” Will concedes, but he draws it out, obviously dubious. He gives Nico a look. “I’ll see you at the Seven Meeting?”

Nico smiles reassuringly. “Yeah. I’ll see you.”

“I love you,” Will tells him.

“You too,” Nico says, helplessly.

The water flickers, and Nico drops his spoon in the sink. He takes a deep breath. Nico walks to his room, looking at Percy’s now closed door. Had he heard any of Nico’s conversation? Does he care? Nico makes himself faceplant onto the bed.

Nico, of course, doesn’t get any sleep, save for two hours, that night. Percy’s already at the beach when Nico gets up, and he’s out in the water once Nico gets his cup of coffee. Nico sits down under the palm tree and greets the dryad with a grunt. She doesn’t respond and hides in her tree the whole time.

Percy comes out of the water looking stormy and gorgeous. Nico tries to ignore how his mouth goes dry at the sight of him.

“Morning,” Nico says.

Percy gives him a half smile, nothing like the smiles from yesterday. “Morning. When do you leave today?” he asks. Percy’s eyes have yet to meet his own.

“Probably around noon,” Nico says. “Unless you want me to leave sooner.”

“What?” Percy asks, wide eyed. “Of course I don’t want you to leave. Sooner. Want you to leave sooner.”

Nico feels his cheeks pink a little. “Oh. Okay, then I won’t.”

“Good,” Percy says, awkwardly. With a huff, he plops down next to Nico. “I’m sorry about everything.”

It’s apparently Nico’s turn to be confused. “What?”

“Nevermind,” Percy says, waving his hand dismissively like Nico tends to do. “It’s nothing. Let’s just enjoy the sunshine, and then you can leave, and I’ll see you later.”

“Are you nervous about being alone again?” Nico finds himself asking.

Percy shrugs. “I’ve got Wilhelmenia.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “I didn’t realize I was so easily replaced.”

“Of course,” Percy tells him. “It’s not like I like you or anything.”

“Who would ever think that?” Nico asks dryly. Percy grins at him.

“They’d be horribly wrong,” Percy tells him, bumping their shoulders. “I don’t like you in the slightest.”

“Good,” Nico says, grinning back. He looks out at the ocean. “I don’t like you either.”

Percy’s grin goes a little lopsided, but he bumps their shoulders together again. “Alright, what should we do with the time we have?”

They run through options. Nico suggest they go to town, but Percy reminds him how long it takes. Percy suggests swimming, but Nico’s still a little burnt from their last couple days in the sun. Noon finds them sprawled out on the couch, their feet tangled together in the middle as they attempt to play cards on their laps.

“Speed!” Nico says between snickers, watching as Percy’s pile of cards falls onto the floor once more.

“You cheated,” Percy whines, but he’s grinning. “Next round, your ass is mine.”

Nico kicks Percy’s upper thigh. “I think I have to go soon,” Nico says, sounding regretful.

Percy makes a face. “Oh, man, I didn’t realize the time.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Nico asks again.

Percy’s face goes from open to closed. He shifts in his seat. “Yeah, I’m good here.”

Nico lets it go with narrowed eyes. He untangles himself from Percy and goes into the bedroom, packing one of his smaller bags with a change of clothes. He walks back out into the main room where Percy is perched on the couch.

“I’ll see you later,” Nico says.

“Okay,” Percy agrees.

Nico walks into the shadows and ignores the feeling that Percy’s not telling him something.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico takes a few days, comes to a decision, and goes back. Also, nightmares are a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More destruction is done to Will's character. My bad. There is also mentions of drinking in this, because get a bunch of twenty year olds together and someone is going to break out the hard liquor. 
> 
> Sidenote: porn soon. Everybody loves porn.

Seven Meetings started a week or so after the Seven split to live their lives, post-battle. Nico was told the first had been incredibly awkward, up until the moment Leo had cracked a joke about Gaea sucking the fun out of everything. Slowly, over time, they became the laid-back hang outs they were now, where everyone who could come would. They happen sporadically now, if only because the majority of the Seven live in New Rome. Now, everyone just takes turn hosting the Meetings in their various homes.

For the first few Seven Meetings, Nico had not been present, if only because he was somewhere else across the globe. Jason would usually invite him, casually mentioning it would be a good time to catch up with “old friends”, and by that, he had mostly meant Percy. Then, Will had fully sucked him in, and Nico was so tightly wrapped around the guy’s finger, he would do nearly anything he asked.

His first Seven Meeting had gone like this: arrive, greet everybody, saw Percy had just arrived, and leave instantly.

With his heart beating fast, damning him with each pulse under his skin, Nico had realized that no matter how much he cared for Will, some things never change. Nico was used to disappointment, but the fact that he would be forever stuck wanting and loving someone who could never want him back, despite having someone who cared for him and wanted him the way Will did, had been crushing. He hadn’t said anything to Will, but one of the greatest things about Will was how well he read Nico and his various moods without a single word spoken.

Suddenly, their relationship had felt stable and crumbling, all at once. Nico started avoiding meetings where Percy would be, and Will noticed. Mentioning Percy in conversation around the couple would result in Nico acting moodier than usual and Will tight-mouthed and sad.

Percy Jackson had ruined everything for Nico, once again, and Nico had no one to blame but himself and his stupid feelings.

Arriving at the Meeting now is a definite contrast to the first time he went. For one, while he’s still unbelievably early, he’s not the first person there. That would be Hazel, who is holding a Sprite can in one hand, looking around Jason’s apartment like she’s never seen it before. She’s probably just thrown off by the dorky Halloween decorations Jason has pinned on the walls. A skull sticker had greeted Nico at the door, and he had known instantly that these were for him.

Swallowing his pride, which is extraordinarily hard for Nico, he walks over to his sister.

“Hazel,” he says. She turns to him and instantly throws her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest.

“I’m sorry, Nico,” she mumbles, and he returns her hug slowly.

“No, it was my fault. I’m an asshole,” he tells her hair. She giggles into his chest.

“You are, but I know better than to press you like that.” She pulls away and gives the apartment another once over. There’s a series of skeletons hanging near their heads. “Out of season, but nice decorations, right?”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Jason thinks he’s clever.”

“You are very Halloween,” she concedes. “I’m guessing this meeting is for you then?”

Suddenly, Nico wants to change the subject, but he doesn’t want to fight again. “I may have needed a little break from Percy.”

Hazel gives him an assessing look. She’s getting better at reading him, has developed the skill over the course of the past few years, and now, it’s like she can see right through him. “Oh, really?”

“We should start setting out snacks and things,” Nico tells her, hurriedly. She snorts.

“Okay, okay. You can tell me later.”

They move to the kitchen where Jason is cutting up carrots. He places them on a plate next to celery and a small bowl of ranch.

“Hey, man,” Nico says, walking over to give Jason free reign to bro hug him. He doesn’t understand why Jason thinks throwing an arm over his shoulder and patting him on the back with the other one constitutes as a hug, but he’s written it off as a new age thing he doesn’t care to learn about.

“Glad you could make it,” Jason tells him, as if he isn’t the reason this Meeting is happening. “Reyna’s going to be back with Piper in a couple minutes.”

“Cool,” Nico says. “Want any help setting up?”

“Not really,” Jason says. “We did most of it before Hazel got here.”

“Yeah, where’s Frank and Leo?” Nico asks, turning to his sister.

She takes a sip of her Sprite. “Leo’s going to be here in, like, an hour or so. Frank said he was coming, but I think he might too busy with Praetor business.” She frowns worriedly. “He’s been working really hard recently.”

Jason nods sympathetically. “They’ve been working Reyna pretty hard too. I think they’re working on something.”

“That involves the camp?” she asks, suspiciously.

Jason shrugs. “Reyna hasn’t told me yet.”

Nico moves to take a chair at the breakfast table Jason and Reyna keep in their kitchen, motioning for Hazel to join him. “Weird,” he comments, idly.

They talk more for a couple of minutes before the door opens. Reyna and Piper are laughing as they enter, and they greet Nico with giant smiles. He hugs them both, awkwardly patting Piper’s shoulder. They have never been that close, and honestly, he had avoided Piper in the past. At first, it was because she had been Annabeth’s best friend, and then when she and Jason broke up, Nico had felt disloyal. Now days, he just isn’t sure how to interact with her, but Reyna's growing friendship with her makes him lean more to the positive than negative.

“So, how’s everything?” Hazel asks her, once she gets her own hug. She looks at Reyna. “That includes you. I’ve heard you’ve been busy.”

The girls take the other two seats at the kitchen table and catch everyone up.

“I’ve been learning photography,” Piper says, her short nails tugging at strings on the placemats. “Annabeth says I’m good, but you know, she’s biased.”

“I’m sure you’re great at it,” Hazel tells her. “Finding beauty in things is kind of your specialty.”

Reyna snorts. “As long as you don’t take my picture. I haven’t slept in a week.”

“You look great,” Nico says, “you know, for a dead person.”

Reyna glares at him. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Look at those bags under your eyes. I thought vacations were meant to be relaxing.”

“You try relaxing with Percy Jackson running around half-naked and freaking out over teenage girls,” Nico tells her, voice dry.

Hazel fans herself. “Why would he be stressed about teenage girls?”

“Just look at our friend group,” Jason comments, not even glancing over his shoulder and pouring Cheetos onto a plate. “I don’t blame him.”

Piper is watching Nico, though, reading something in him he isn’t sure he wants her to see. “He’s letting you stay?”

Nico shrugs. “I kind of forced my company onto him. I think he feels bad about kicking me out.”

“Right,” Piper says. The air gets a little awkward for a second.

“So, Piper,” Hazel starts, “where’s Annabeth?"

Piper smiles, soft and fond. “She’s in the middle of some big project, but she says she’ll be here later tonight.”

It gets a little more comfortable after that, and when Leo shows up, the atmosphere only improves. By the time Frank and Annabeth show up, strangely arriving at the same time, the Meeting is in full swing, including terrible charade games with nearly everyone piled onto the couch. Nico is pressed almost entirely into Jason’s side with Reyna perching on his lap, laughing at Frank and Leo’s attempt at properly aiding Hazel in her guessing, when the door opens again.

Everyone looks over to see Will walk in. Nico’s heart thuds in his chest lightly, and he feels dread pool in his stomach. Will seems to find him in the group instantly, giving him a grin that still gives Nico butterflies.

“Hey,” Nico says, his voice soft.

“Hi, Will,” Reyna calls, draping herself over Nico. “I stole your spot- Ouch!” She rubs at her ribs, where Jason had elbowed her.

Will shrugs. “I’ll just take a spot on the floor.”

“Nooo,” Hazel sings at him. She jumps up from her spot in between Annabeth and Jason. “Take my spot. I’m probably going to be doing the charade thing next anyway.”

By eight o’clock, everyone’s failed at least once at charades, to the point everyone is sick of the game. Instead, they all sit in a lopsided circle on the floor, having conversations among themselves. Will locks eyes with Nico and motions his head to the door. Nico nods, makes his excuses, and follows him.

They sneak away, creeping down the hallway and into Jason and Reyna’s room. Nico automatically moves to the bed, and Will tentatively sits next to him.

“Everyone seems to be having fun,” Will starts, and Nico nods.

“I’m surprised so many people could make it with such short notice,” Nico comments.

“I think everyone’s been a little stressed recently,” Will responds. He bites his lip, looking at Nico with his stupidly blue eyes. He looks almost golden for a moment. “So, Percy isn’t with you?”

Nico swallows. “No. He didn’t want to come.”

“He usually loves these things,” Will tells him, like that isn’t one of the main reasons Nico has only been to a few Meetings to begin with.

Nico shrugs. “I’m not his keeper. He didn’t want to come, and I wasn’t going to force him.”

“Nico.” Will’s eyes are trying to lock with Nico’s, and Nico keeps trying to find something else to look at. “If you’re with him, you should tell me.”

That sparks a little irritation. “I’m not with him, Will. He’s not in any state to date anyone right now, gods.”

“Then why are you even there? You've never wanted to spend time with him before,” Will asks, confusion blending with a hint of jealousy.

“Don't pretend you don't know why,” Nico snaps back. “You know that.”

Will looks upset. “Of course I know that. How could I not? You can’t even bring yourself to be in the same room as the guy, because that’s how strongly he makes you feel things. Olympus forbid you let yourself have emotions.”

“Don’t,” Nico spits out, “make this a competition on who I like more.”

“That’s what it is, though, right? That’s what I signed up for,” Will says. “A constant competition for my boyfriend’s affection.”

“Ex,” Nico corrects. “I’m your ex-boyfriend.”

“I don’t want you to be,” Will says, all the heat seeping out of his words in an instant. He almost visibly deflates. “You don’t even realize how amazing you are, even with all the emotional constipation.”

“I miss you too,” Nico tells him. He pulls his knees to his chin. “Being with you made me so happy, and you helped me so much, even when I didn’t ask for it.”

Will frowns. “This sounds like a real break up speech.”

“Maybe it is,” Nico concedes. “You deserve someone who isn’t constantly staring after someone else.”

“I don’t want that, though,” Will argues. “I want you, with all the brooding and having to remind you to eat. I don’t mind looking after you, and I never have.”

“You shouldn’t have to babysit your boyfriend,” Nico says helplessly.

“But I want to.”

“Will.” Nico reaches out and grabs his hand. “I wish I could transfer it all over to you, you know. And for a while, I thought I had, but Aphrodite fucking hates me or something. You’re so perfect, and so fucking attractive, even when we argue, I just want to kiss your stupid face.

“Remember when you taught me how to deal with the internet because you wanted me to be able to look at Mythomagic forums on my own?” Will nods. “That was probably the moment I knew I could love you. Before, it had just been this feeling that I could like you, which had been a step forward at that point, but you just proved to be even more spectacular.”

“Why don’t you, then?” Will asks, sounding heartbroken.

Nico threads their fingers. “I do, in a way. It would be so comfortable and happy, with you.”

“That’s not what you want?” Will asks.

“That’s not who I am,” Nico tells him. “I’ve never been able to be content and not tear it to pieces. I’m guessing this includes this too.” He squeezes Will’s hand before letting go.

Will sighs and collapses onto the bed, sprawling out like it’s his own. “You’re a fucking moron, and I really wish I didn’t love you as much as I do.”

Nico snorts, falling down next to him. “Yeah.”

Will grabs his hand and threads their fingers together as they lay in the silence. They can hear the others laughing down the hall, but they don’t speak or move to rejoin the party. Instead, Will curls slightly towards Nico, watching him with soft, sad blue eyes. Nico finds himself mirroring him, until their foreheads are close enough to touch.

He isn’t sure when he falls asleep, but he wakes up to the sound of Jason whispering at Reyna to be quiet.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Reyna says, falling on top of him. He huffs out a breath, pushing at her elbow that is dangerously close to his face.

“Where’s Will?” he asks.

Jason gives him a look. “He left a couple hours ago. Piper and Annabeth are passed out on the couch, though.”

Nico frowns. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“In bed with us,” Reyna mumbles, already snuggling on top of Nico. Jason was right about her using people as body heaters, which is not something Nico has ever cared to know.

“Reyna,” Jason scolds. “Don’t make him uncomfortable.”

“‘M not!” Reyna pats Nico’s head. “He’s so small. Let’s keep him.”

Nico gives Jason a confused look.

Jason sighs. “They broke out the liquor about halfway through Twister.”

“Tequila!” Reyna shouts in Nico’s ear, raising her fist in the air victoriously.

“Right,” Nico says. Jason pulls off Reyna’s shoes and takes care of his own before climbing into bed. “Am I actually sleeping here?”

“If you want,” Jason says with a shrug. “We’ve had more people in this bed.”

“One time, we had both Annabeth and Percy,” Reyna tells him. “Did you know they have night terrors? They started screaming at the same time.”

Nico shifts uncomfortably. “I haven’t heard Percy scream in the last few days.”

Jason gives him a look. “It’s probably because you’re there.”

“What?” Nico asks, confused.

“We always sleep better when you’re around,” Reyna answers. “Like the dead.”

Nico makes a face. “I didn’t realize that was something I could do.”

“It’s probably more like a comfort thing,” Jason tells him. “We know you’re in the front room, and you’re more than capable of fighting off whatever comes through the door.”

“That’s a tad paranoid,” Nico says dryly. Jason just shrugs again, moving the sheets against the bed.

Reyna and Jason fall asleep a little after that, Reyna eventually moving herself over onto Jason in her sleep. Nico tries to fall back to sleep, but his eyelids refuse to grow heavy. He wishes he had the ability to make people sleep the way Reyna had been implying; he would use that on himself all the time. Instead, Nico has to sneak out of bed and try to get a glass of water.

He gets down the hallway and finds Piper passed out with her head on the armrest closest to him. Annabeth’s silver eyes find him from the other end, even in the dark.

“Can’t sleep either?” she asks him.

Nico nods, realizes she probably can’t see him, and says, “Yeah.”

Annabeth sighs. “This is the worst.”

Piper makes a huffy noise, and Nico sees Annabeth’s hand reach out and stroke her leg soothingly. Nico shifts awkwardly for a second before moving into the kitchen and just making his glass of water. When he turns around, Annabeth is standing in the doorway.

“Does Percy talk to you?” she asks suddenly. Nico’s eyebrow shoots up.

“Yeah,” he says, slowly. “Should he not?”

She looks flustered, slightly irritated by something. “He wouldn’t talk to me when I tried to get him to come back.”

“He says you guys argued about something,” Nico tells her.

“Well, if you call me yelling at him and then leaving when he didn’t respond ‘arguing’, that’s exactly what we did,” she says. She sighs. “He didn’t even tell me he was thinking about leaving. He just IM’d me one day and said, ‘hey, I’m going to go live out in the middle of nowhere, don’t try and convince me not to, but if you want to see me, here’s the address.’”

“He’s a weirdo like that,” Nico admits.

Annabeth looks annoyed by this. “He’s running away from something. I thought it was, you know, us, but then when he wouldn’t even talk to me… He’s not like that.”

Nico thinks about it for a second. He blinks as something clicks. “There’s this cashier.”

“Okay?” She gives him a ‘what the hell’ look.

“No, he refused to talk to her. And when he tried, she didn’t react at all,” Nico says, thinking about the way Percy had tentatively greeted Collette. “She’s totally into him, too. If she had heard him talk to her, she would have reacted.”

Annabeth looks suspicious. “But you said he could talk to you.”

“He can,” Nico tells her. “And Willy.”

“Willy?”

“The palm tree,” Nico says. “Dryad.”

Annabeth makes a noise. “Oh, I remember her.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Nico finds himself promising her. Annabeth’s silver eyes still gleam, even in the darkness of the apartment. “Something isn’t right with Percy, and I’ll find out what it is.”

“I don’t doubt you will,” Annabeth says with a tone that implies something else. Nico finds himself blushing brilliantly. He hopes she can’t tell.

“Not you too,” he complains. “Besides, you’re not one to talk, right?”

Annabeth snickers. “It’s nice to be on the other side for once,” she admits.

“She’s really into you,” Nico says.

“I know,” Annabeth admits. “I just don’t know if I’m ready. Percy and I were supposed to be forever, you know? I just don’t know if whatever Piper and I have can ever trump that.”

Nico finds himself nodding. “Percy would probably take you back.”

“I don’t want to date him again,” Annabeth says, sounding exasperated. “And I’m not sure he would.”

“He would,” Nico assures.

“Hm,” Annabeth says. They’re silent for a moment. “I think I’m going to try to sleep again.”

“Okay,” Nico says. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Nico.”

Nico practically runs back to the bedroom. Reyna and Jason are still sleeping and don’t notice him crawling back in at all. He curls up in a ball and thinks about hearing the waves crash on the beach. He thinks of green eyes, and he somehow falls asleep once more.

* * *

He spends the next three days on Jason’s couch, either curled up on his side or with Jason and Reyna next to him, forcing him into watching their new favorite show. Jason feeds him sandwiches before he leaves for his job, where he helps teach the older, newer legion members basic physical training. Reyna is usually gone in the mornings before Jason, but she also tends to arrive home earlier than him.

When she walks in, she ruffles his hair and asks him if he’s had anything else to eat, to which, he more often than not tells her no. She manages to motivate him into getting off the couch and helping in the kitchen, simply by threatening to cook, and together, they make something around the time Jason wanders in.

It’s all a familiar routine, if only because Nico has done this again and again, with every time he had nowhere else to go. For a limited amount of time, it had been Jason on his couch, even less motivated than Nico is in the throws of his funk, and Nico should probably be ashamed that he still uses that time to justify his imposition on his friend. He isn’t. Forcing Jason into the shower every few days for those months had broken down walls in their friendship that Nico can never rebuild, isn’t even sure he wants to.

By the time Nico is ready to head back to the island, it’s been four days of doing nothing. He looks over at where Jason is sitting on the floor, head resting in Reyna’s lap. “I think it’s time for me to go,” Nico tells them.

Jason rolls his head towards Nico. “You don’t have to.”

“We love having you here,” Reyna tells him.

Nico gives them a look. “You guys are practically itching for me to leave.”

“It’s true we don’t get to have acrobatic sex in the kitchen while you’re here,” Reyna admits, tone dry, “but you’re family.”

Jason just nods.

His promise to Annabeth sits in the back of his mind. “I have some stuff I have to take care of.”

“Okay,” Jason says. “Are you going to leave right now?”

“In the morning,” Nico decides after a moment.

“I’ll wake you up before I leave,” Reyna says. Nico wants to groan, just thinking about the early hour, but he doesn’t object.

They watch television for another half hour, and then the couple leaves Nico to try and sleep.

It refused to catch him in its hold until he had been practically banging his head on the arm of the sofa, hoping maybe he would knock himself unconscious. Needless to say, when Reyna wakes him up and sends him off, he hasn’t had more than an hour of sleep at the most. It doesn’t make sense to him, because for the past few days, he had managed to almost do nothing but sleep. Now, he’s tired and aching, cup of coffee in a thermos Jason keeps at his house for moments like these.

Nico breezes through the folds of shadows over rising towns and sleeping cities until he reaches a familiar palm tree. He looks around, noticing Percy out in the water already, and more or less collapses under Willy’s minimal shade.

She turns from her watching Percy and gives Nico a look. “Oh,” she says, sounding upset. “You’re back.”

Nico figures that’s a fair reaction. “Unfortunately.”

They lapse into silence as they watch Percy swim for a moment.

“Has, uh,” Nico starts. “Has he mentioned me?”

Willy gives him a look. “I think he’s been worried about whether or not you’d come back,” she admits.

Nico’s chest fucking flutters at the thought, and he wants to smack himself. “Of course I was coming back.”

“You were gone for a while,” she tells him, dubiously.

“But I’m back now,” he snaps back, irritably. “Honestly.”

“He says you tend to avoid him a lot. He thought maybe you were trying that again.” Willy looks back out at the ocean and sighs.

Nico stays damnably silent. She doesn’t smirk. They go silent once more.

Percy takes longer in the water than usual, although it’s all worth it when he hits the beach and sees Nico sitting under the palm tree. Nico’s heart beats out a fast rhythm in his chest at the sight of Percy’s bright, relieved grin, and while Nico’s still irritated the goofball would think he wouldn’t come back, he finds it really isn’t that important.

He jogs towards Nico, making Nico awkwardly feel the need to stand up. Only, when he reaches Nico, he doesn’t stop, his momentum slamming Nico against his chest and right back onto the sandy ground. Percy wraps his arms around Nico’s head protectively, and as they fall, he laughs, like pummeling other people into the sand is the most fun he’s had in a while.

Nico’s hands are clenched into the muscles of Percy’s back, and he can feel the way Percy’s laughter makes his body jerk and move. Percy’s breath creeps down his neck, his hairs standing on end all over his body.

“You’re back,” Percy murmurs, mouth unnecessarily close to the sensitive skin of Nico’s neck.

“I am,” Nico chokes out. “Although, I may not be alive for very much longer if you continue to squish me.”

Percy snickers and sits back, still perched over Nico’s body, looking like any sex dream Nico’s ever had. “I might have missed you,” Percy admits. His eyes go wide for a second before he’s scrambling off Nico. “Oh, crap, I didn’t mean to get you all wet.”

Nico wants to cry. “It’s fine.” Percy’s hand shoots out and clasps his shoulder. For a second, Nico thinks he’s going to say something ridiculous like “I may have just tackled you, semi-sexually, but I meant it in the most straight way possible.” Instead, Nico’s shirt that had been sticking to him dries instantly. “That’s a nice perk I keep forgetting about,” Nico comments.

Percy shrugs, rolling off of him. “Not as cool as, say, raising an army of the undead, but it has its uses.”

“Well, being the son of Hades has a lot of drawbacks,” Nico tells him, leaning back on his arms. He tries not to notice Percy’s eyes tracing almost tangible paths down his body. He tries not to do the same, despite the fact Percy is sitting next to him looking the way he always has. “It makes sense that I get some good shit out of the deal. Balance and all that.”

Percy rolls his eyes. “I could wash away your skeletons in seconds.”

“Or suck me under the ocean,” Nico says, without thinking. His cheeks heat. “I mean, like an undertow.”

A smile that’s both parts coy and threatening curls on Percy’s face. “You think so?”

Nico makes himself sit up. “Why? Are you challenging me to a duel? Think your water powers are better than my mastery over the undead?”

“I think that if we even tried to find that out, we would wreck the island,” Percy answers. He grins. “We could always find other ways to prove who’s the best, though.”

Nico has more than a few ideas on how, but he sticks to his more PG thoughts. “We’re not having the Who Can Hold Their Breath The Longest competitions in the water again,” Nico warns.

Percy laughs. “Okay, I may have cheated during that one.”

“For five fucking minutes,” Nico complains. “You were showing off.”

“Maybe,” Percy concedes.

Nico shifts his legs in the sand. “We could build sand castles.”

It’s Percy’s turn to give him a look. “Sure, except for how you can move the sand.”

“Everything is dead,” Nico admits. “but I won’t cheat like a certain asshole I know.”

“I’m an asshole now, am I?” Percy teases. He trips a little over the swear, which is more than a little adorable. “Here I thought you came back because you like my company.”

“Nope,” Nico promises. He gives Percy a histrionic leer. “I’m definitely only here for the view.”

Percy turns pink. He looks out at the water. “Yeah, it’s pretty gorgeous here,” he says, all innocence. Nico wants to smack him, but he abstains.

Eventually, they decide on making sand castles. Unsurprising to anyone, Percy wins, although Nico is pretty sure having Willy as a judge rigged the game in Percy’s favor.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” Percy teases, and Nico throws sand at his head.

The hours slip from Nico’s hands like the sand beneath his toes. Percy manages to convince him to swim again, all soft smiles and tugging on Nico’s wrist when he catches it as Nico tries to move away. Nico’s skin tingles where Percy’s skin meets his own. Percy might as well have knocked him over the head for how he’s rendered Nico utterly useless.

Nico sits on their sandbar, more or less just watching Percy show off his various abilities. Eventually, even Percy gets bored of doing nothing but hanging out in the water, and they climb back onto the beach.

Percy gives Nico a worried look. “I should have made you put on sunscreen.”

“What?” Nico asks, looking down at his body. He can see a little pinkness, but it doesn’t look too bad to him.

“You’re toasted,” Percy tells him, point blank. “Ah, man, that’s going to hurt, too.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

He can tell the moment Percy thinks the same thing he does. They both stay silent as Tartarus rolls through their mind. Nico’s breath quickens, but he lets the memories come and go with a practiced ease. He thinks about what Reyna said about Percy and Annabeth having night terrors.

After what he refers mentally to as The Jar Incident, Nico’s appetite has never really reasserted itself, which is probably partially to blame for his height and pale skin. He’s more or less used to having a meal a day, twice a day if he’s staying at Jason’s. Percy is not like this, almost constantly eating something if he’s anywhere near food, from what Nico can tell. He wonders if it’s something from his childhood, whether his mother constantly made him snacks the way Nico figures she had.

Nico’s lack of interest in food makes Percy worry in a way Nico hasn’t seen since the first time he brought it up with Will. He seems to have made it his main mission to force Nico into eating at least a bite of whatever Percy is eating, including every snack the idiot prepares for himself. He trumps over Nico’s refusal and always looks smug the moment Nico caves.

That night, however, Nico is ravenous. He and Percy stand shoulder to shoulder, staring into the abyss that is Percy’s small refrigerator.

“I’m in the mood for pasta,” Nico tells Percy. “Oh, gods, actual Italian pasta. Let’s go to Italy.”

“That didn’t go over too well last time,” Percy reminds him. “Besides, if you tried to shadow travel now, you might pass out.”

Nico snorts. “I’m not fifteen anymore. Shadow traveling only got easier with age.”

Percy grabs something from the fridge door and holds it triumphantly. “Look at this,” he says, excited.

Nico reads the bottle, obviously unimpressed. “Ragu.”

“Ragu!” Percy whirls around and whips through a cabinet. He pulls out a scarily familiar orange pack.

“No,” Nico starts, before Percy can even say the words.

Percy practically pouts. “But you want pasta.”

“Real pasta,” Nico bitches. “Not shit noodles with ketchup sauce on them.”

“I can do it really well,” Percy cajoles. “This is as close as you’re going to get to Italy at this point.”

“I’m not eating that,” Nico says, tone offering no room for argument.

Of course, he ends up eating it. It isn’t even that bad, once Nico gets past the idea that anyone could consider it a kind of spaghetti. It fills him up at least, and Percy actually seems to agree for once, despite being a giant black pit of nothingness.

“I’ve been on too many quests where I couldn’t eat,” Percy tells him, mouth full of noodles. Red drips down his chin, but Nico says nothing because he’s sure he looks something similar. “I just eat whatever I can now because I don’t know when I’m going to have to give it all up again.”

Nico nods. “I can understand that.”

Percy stares at Nico’s mouth. “You’ve got something-” Nico reaches up, but Percy shakes his head. “Here, let me…”

Nico’s eyes lock onto Percy’s as he thumbs an embarrassingly low part of Nico’s chin. He feels his cheeks heat, and Percy’s eyes are so bright, brilliant green.

“You’ve got a bit of something everywhere,” Nico’s mouth says. The moment breaks, and Percy pulls his hand away. “I thought I was the teenager here.”

Percy rolls his eyes. “I didn’t realize I had to break out the good china for you.”

“Manners are not the equivalent of good china,” Nico disagrees, and Percy snorts.

“Manners? You’re talking with your mouth full right now!”

“Don’t make this about me,” Nico says. Percy groans.

Finishing dinner and cleaning up is filled with jibes and jabs. Nico laughs more than he has in the past two weeks, and Percy can’t stop smiling. Only, Percy can’t seem to stop touching him either, whether it be patting his shoulder or grabbing his arm to get his attention. Nico’s skin feels electric, and his gut turns. He can’t get a full breath with Percy’s hands all over him, feeling too much and not enough at the same time.

Percy must feel the same, because as he tells Nico goodnight, he reaches forward and wraps himself firmly around Nico. While Percy has good muscle definition, he isn’t a large guy. He’s tall, but he’s lean. Nico is still smaller though, looking more like a pile of bones who put on skin and went for a walk rather than human, and he folds into Percy’s body like a house of cards. He buries his face in Percy’s collarbone, his hands reaching up to grab at Percy’s shirt desperately. For all that it doesn’t last longer than a minute, Nico feels time drag and drop, then ripped away as he makes himself move back. He waves Percy off and crawls into his borrowed bed.

Nico thinks, after that, he might be too worked up to actually sleep, but he is terribly wrong. He passes out almost immediately. His sleep is dreamless, dark and vast. If this is what Jason and Reyna experience when he sleeps over, Nico thinks he understand why they like having him around.

Waking up the next day is a test of Nico’s willpower. Every inch of him cried out in either sunburn-induced pain or simple exhaustion, but Nico’s nothing if not stubborn. He forces himself out of his too warm sheets and stumbles down the hallway, only to find Percy already sitting in the main room, hunched over his computer.

Nico pauses and reasses how long he had been sleeping. “What time is it?”

“Nearly two,” Percy tells him, watching intently. Nico can’t tell if it’s just worry, and he refuses to look any further than that. “You slept for a long time.”

“I didn’t sleep very well the night before,” Nico says. “My sleeping cycle isn’t exactly the most normal thing about me.”

“Because you are just the average Joe,” Percy teases. Nico drops onto the couch and then hisses when the fabric rubs his burnt legs the wrong way. “Have you tried ambrosia?”

Nico gives him a look. “It’ll go away within a day. There’s no need for ambrosia.”

“You’re in pain,” Percy counters. He stands and moves over to the couch, bringing his computer with him. It hums like an angry cat as Percy props it on his lap.

“I’m not a child,” Nico snaps back.

“You should take care of yourself,” Percy says, “but whatever. I’m not your mom. Suffer, then.” He turns his attention to his computer. Nico can’t help but try and peek over his shoulder, only to have Percy flinch away, pulling the screen towards him.

“You should let me read what you’re writing,” Nico whines. “I can be your editor.”

“No thanks,” Percy says, hurriedly. “For my eyes only until I decide to publish, dude.”

Nico leans back and crosses his arms, legs automatically curling up to his chest. “Whatever.”

They stare at each other. Percy forces his attention back to the computer and starts slowly typing. He keeps peeking at Nico, who just blatantly stares at him. Percy shifts uncomfortably, and something occurs to Nico.

Over the past twenty-four hours, the only times Percy hadn’t been touching him were while Nico slept and right now. Even then, Nico had woken up to find his door open, meaning someone had to have opened it.

Percy shifts again, and Nico slowly slides his legs out, until his toes tuck under Percy’s thighs. Percy stops shifting and types a little faster. Nico aches.

There are a lot of things to consider, Nico knows this. He also knows that the idea of Percy being afraid of Nico leaving him, of wanting to constantly have Nico around, goes straight to his head like champagne. He feels warmth course through him, hand-in-hand with the longing that makes itself known once more.

Sitting in silence while Percy awkwardly types on his computer, Nico can’t help but mentally compare it to all the times he had sat in similar positions with Will. It had felt so comfortable, then, like breathing, existing, and being in the same place with Will was the way things were meant to be. Right now, doing nothing more than sitting near Percy, Nico is anything but content, and while physically comfortable, he can’t help but trip over the rapid beats his heart sets.

Nico isn’t just content; he’s blissful and irritated and aching. He’s wanting and devoted and utterly besotted, and it hits him that the emotion he always has associated with Percy, strong and burning in his chest, is not just one, but a million emotions. It’s like everything he’s ever felt for Percy has snowballed into a giant burning black heart inside him, pumping blood into his veins until every inch of him is infected, incurably and entirely Percy’s.

He watches Percy’s dark hair fall into green eyes and just knows that no matter how many people he tries, and maybe succeed, to love, nothing will ever feel as potent as this; sitting with his cold toes tucked under Percy’s thigh as he taps out a broken beat with his finger tips.

Percy seems to notice something on Nico’s face because he asks, “Everything alright over there?”

“Perfect,” Nico chokes out, because it is. He is, with all his stupid, good for nothing heroism and need to rush into danger for the sake of the people he loves. Nico thinks about how he tried to hate him for years and years, and it all resulted in this. It’s just another thing on a long list for Nico to feel bitter about, to be mad at the gods for throwing him these kind of curve balls.

Percy reaches out and rubs Nico’s ankle, and the dark brewing inside him calms like the eye of a storm. “We can eat some of that leftover pasta in a minute,” Percy tells him consolingly. “I just have another paragraph.”

Nico doesn't respond and wonders how he's supposed to keep his promise to Annabeth when all he can think about is how the center of his universe seems to move in time with Percy's thumb on his ankle bone.

They stay inside for the day, and while Percy can’t seem to sit still, Nico keeps being distracted by just how physical Percy is. Once Percy grows bored with writing, he gets up and starts straightening the room, unnecessarily, then collapses back on the couch next to Nico, closer than he had been before. Nico’s legs are curled back to his chest, yet Percy manages to sit on his toes, draping his arm on the back of the couch. His fingers tickle the back of Nico’s neck.

He manages to sit still for only thirty more seconds. “I’m bored,” Percy complains.

“You could always call someone,” Nico says, thinking of Annabeth and her worried frown. “If my company isn’t enough for you.”

“I don’t think anyone wants to hear from me right now,” Percy jokes, nervously twitching.

“People always want to hear from you,” Nico says with a roll of his eyes.

Percy shifts in his seat. “I left without warning. They might be mad.”

“Mad and worried are two different things,” Nico argues. He wiggles his toes from under Percy’s leg. “You could at least talk to Willy. She’s nearly halfway to being in love with you.”

With a roll of his eyes, Percy gives him an accusatory look. “You think everyone is in love with me.”

“Maybe I still am able to notice the symptoms,” Nico says sarcastically, but it falls short of joking. Percy stares at him.

“Symptoms of being into me?” Percy asks, incredulously.

Nico nods, like his face isn’t on fire. “While strangely common, it’s usually incurable. Let us visit evidence A,” he says, waving at himself.

Percy’s eyes are practically glowing in the afternoon light. He turns himself more towards Nico in interest. “Please, do list these symptoms.”

“Idiocy,” Nico starts. Percy frowns. “The kind that comes mostly in the form of just wanting to do good things for no other reason than because it’ll make you smile. Obsessive staring. Comparing your eyes to various oceans the sufferer may or may not have seen in their travels.”

Percy rests his head on his shoulder, still watching Nico. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“You’re to blame for just as many of my good intentions as you are my grievances,” Nico reminds him. Percy curls his fingers that had presently been on the back of the couch into Nico’s shoulder.

“What grievances are those?” Percy asks, almost cautiously. His warmth bleeds in through the heavy fabric of Nico’s pants.

“We have a history. Not everyone else has that with you,” Nico admits. “And I may have a bad habit of blaming you for things that aren’t entirely under your control.”

Percy smiles against Nico’s knee. “I think I might be okay with carrying around that blame. I once held the world, you know.”

Nico rolls his eyes, but he’s still embarrassingly pink. “Yes, so I’ve heard.”

“Anymore symptoms I should know about?” Percy asks, his warm palm burning into Nico’s shoulder as he slowly crowds more into Nico’s space. “I think I need to be able to know when someone’s halfway to being in love with me.”

“The urge to smack you never goes away,” Nico tells him dryly, “if you were wondering.”

Percy wiggles his eyebrows. “I’m told it usually is met with the equal desire to kiss me stupid.”

Nico shrugs. “I guess. Personally, I’m feeling the first option.”

With a laugh, Percy pokes Nico’s neck, right where Nico’s tattoo peaks out from under his shirt. “But not everyone has your temper.”

“You have a way of bringing the best out of everyone,” Nico snarks. Percy just snickers more. “Besides, I have a way of telling that’s more to do with instinct.”

“Like a radar that tells you who likes me?” Percy asks, amused.

“It’s a vague feeling, like meeting a kindred spirit.” Nico looks away. “Like you can sense the loneliness that comes with caring deeply for another person in that kind of unrequited fashion, and it kind of reverberates inside of you. Suddenly, you’re fourteen and heartbroken and confused and so fucking alone.”

Percy’s fingers start rubbing circles into Nico’s shoulder blade. “You didn’t stay alone.”

It brings a cynical smile to Nico’s face. “No. I met someone I thought I could probably love in a way I couldn’t love you.”

“It worked,” Percy reminds him.

Nico lets himself look back at Percy, and he tries to force the words, “Not good enough,” out of his mouth. They sit on the back of his tongue and choke him.

Percy leans back and leaves Nico bereft of the heat he gives off, simply by existing. “Want to play cards?” Percy asks abruptly, standing and moving to the table where his computer rests.

“Uh,” is all Nico is able to force out before Percy is pulling cards out of the drawer and starting to shuffle. “What game?”

They play gin rummy for at least an hour, until Percy grows too bored to stand it anymore.

“Let me check your sunburn,” Percy demands.

Nico moves away from Percy’s outreaching hands. “No.”

“Come on, don’t be a baby. I won’t touch it. I just want to see how bad it is.” Percy widens his eyes slightly, and Nico narrows his in response.

“I know it’s bad enough I shouldn’t be in the sun right now,” Nico tells him. “That’s all you need to know too.”

Percy blows air out his mouth in a frustrated manner. Nico takes pity on him.

“You don’t have to hang out inside with me,” Nico snaps at him. “Go swim or something.”

“It’s not as fun if you’re not there,” Percy says miserably. Nico’s heart flutters.

“You do it every morning.”

“That’s because-” Percy stops. He looks surprised by his broken off thought, and Nico’s suspicions increase.

“Because what?” he asks Percy calmly.

Percy stands and walks into the kitchen. “I’m getting water. Do you want any?”

Nico pushes himself off the couch and follows him. “What were you going to say, Percy?”

There’s a water bottle in Percy’s hand, and he drinks from it instead of answering. Nico cross his arms and waits. Percy seems to realize the flaw in his plan.

He sighs and leans against the counter, staring at the ceiling instead of looking at Nico. “I feel claustrophobic here, sometimes. It’s so humid, even at night and the AC on, that sometimes I think I’m back in Tartarus. The only time I feel like I can actually escape is when I’m swimming. It calms me down.”

Nico frowns. “Why don’t you just leave?”

“I can’t,” Percy says, voice sounding so sad, Nico’s bones ache with it. “I just can’t.”

“Why not? What are you trying to prove? Everyone misses you,” Nico tells him. He thinks of Annabeth. “They’re worried sick.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Percy tells him, sounding like he means the exact opposite. He’s starting to resemble a trapped animal, however, and Nico knows that trying to push him any further would not end well for either of them. It takes every single bit of Nico that has matured even slightly to be able to let it go.

“Okay,” Nico says, taking in a deep breath. He lets it out slowly. “Okay.”

Percy gives him a look. “How was the party?”

“Fine,” Nico says quickly, thinking of lying on the bed with Will, their fingers intertwined. “Drunken Twister was a thing.”

Percy’s sad expression gets worse. “Oh, man, I love drunken Twister,” he whines.

“You should have gone.”

The silence goes tense.

“Sorry,” Nico forces out. Percy acts appeased.

They spend the rest of the day having small arguments like this. Each time, Nico will say something to change the subject, but he stops apologizing. Percy will gracelessly let Nico lead the subject matter away from his self-imposed banishment. Eventually, they actually do something in the kitchen that isn’t Nico making passive-aggressive comments and Percy pretending he either didn’t notice or getting upset.

Percy and Nico make grilled cheeses, coupled with some of the carrots Percy had purchased from the store. They turn in early, Nico tossing and turning on the bed. He thinks of how right Percy is. The cove is muggy and oppressively hot, even at night, but Tartarus had been so much worse. He can see how his subconscious would connect the two, though. In the state between sleeping and awake, Nico can feel his body reacting to the idea in terror. Not again, every inch of him seems to scream.

Suddenly, there’s a real scream that echoes through the house. Nico’s out of his bed and halfway into Percy’s room in a shot.

Percy struggles with blankets on the bed, screaming so loudly, it makes Nico’s ears ache. Nico, despite knowing he shouldn’t, moves over to him, wrapping his hands around any bit of Percy that he can grip.

“Annabeth!” Percy shouts.

“Percy!” Nico shouts back. “You’re safe!”

Percy pauses.

“You’re safe! One hundred percent fine,” Nico says. Percy breathes heavily, whimpering. “It’s okay. It’s over.”

Percy curls up next to Nico, resting his sweaty forehead on Nico’s bare shoulder. Percy’s hands reach around and clutch into the skin of Nico’s back. Nico’s knees dig further into the mattress as he lets Percy practically curl himself on top of him.

He lets his fingers weave their way in and out of Percy’s hair. “It’s okay,” Nico repeats. “It’s just you and me, but it’s okay.”

They stay like that for a couple of minutes, or maybe hours; Nico can’t tell. His legs start to fall asleep, but he can’t be bothered while Percy’s face is pressed against his sternum and neck, nose tucked into his collarbone.

Some part of Nico knows that falling asleep in this position should not be possible, but as Percy relaxes more, Nico finds himself doing the same. He curls himself against Percy, and Percy curls further around him, until they’re so intertwined, Nico isn’t sure he’s ever been so close to another person, including sex. Percy’s chest raises with a breath Nico is sure he breathed himself, and Nico’s matches his in the exhale.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico pushes, and Percy lets him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, the moment everyone has been waiting for: PORN. Yes, this is an explicit fic, and if you have an issue with sex, I highly suggest skipping the majority of this chapter. Let it also be known that I am not used to writing porn, so I apologize for any and all suck (lmao). Sorry, kids. We are also one chapter away from being done. I promise everything will be sufficiently underwhelming. 
> 
> I would like to take this time to thank the people who have commented and left kudos. Thank you, I see them, you are all lovely people who are much too kind.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s fairly sure it was a strange dream, up until the moment he realizes he’s in Percy’s bed and not his own. Percy is gone, already out in the water, as to be expected. Nico rubs his face and takes a second to collect himself before going off to the kitchen for coffee.

Once he’s secured his cup, he walks to the beach. Nico gives the palm tree a long look, but can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that Willy won’t want him to sit near her, after last night. Even if she has no idea he had slept in Percy’s bed, it feels like a betrayal of some kind, like he’s supposed to remain in the kind of sorrow that comes with thinking his affections aren’t returned.

Nico doesn’t examine the feeling in his chest, but it isn’t sorrow, especially not when he approaches the shoreline and sees Percy notice him almost instantly, waving in the distance. Nico lets the water lap at his feet and drinks his coffee, waiting for Percy to swim to him.

“You’re not wearing clothes,” is the first thing Percy tells him from the shallow water a few yards away from Nico.

“I’m wearing shorts,” Nico contradicts.

“I thought you were sunburned,” Percy says dumbly. “Shouldn’t you be covering yourself up or something?”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Do I look pale enough to need that anymore?”

Percy gets closer, standing and walking towards him. His eyes are squinting in the morning light. “You’re tan,” Percy says, once he gets close enough.

“That’s what happens with sunburns,” Nico tells him slowly.

Percy frowns, hand reaching and fingers tracing Nico’s cheek. “You’re too tan for me to see you blush.”

“I used to always be dark. Now, I just tan fast,” Nico says. He hopes he doesn’t sound as breathless as he feels. “Thank the gods.”

Percy is practically pouting. “I like your blush. It makes you look so cute and young.”

Nico’s heart races in his chest and oh, there’s that feeling. “I’m glad it’s gone then. I’m pretty much a terror, in reality.”

Suddenly, Percy’s eyes get a little softer. “You really are. It’s horrible.”

“No idea why you keep me around,” Nico tells him suspiciously. Percy creeps a little closer.

"Probably because, for some reason, you're the only person I can talk to," Percy says. His tone is less joking and more confused, like he's telling Nico a secret he isn't quite sure is entirely true. Nico gets the feeling he isn't referring to Nico incredible skills at navigating emotions either.

"I can think of three people who would be a better choice than me, right off the bat," Nico says dubiously, “and that’s without using my own crew of emotional supporters.”

Percy smiles, but it looks a little wild, uncertain. “I don’t think there is.” Nico has a feeling similar to that of having other people laugh at a joke he isn’t privy to.

Nico’s frustration makes him frown. “Percy-” he starts. Percy takes a step back into the ocean and the water reaches up to greet him as he falls backward. His head pops up a second later, green eyes wide in playful innocence. Nico huffs, finishes his drink, and follows him out into the water.

“Alright, fine,” Nico says. “You want to pretend like you’re not hiding something you want to talk about, let’s do something else that’s totally useless and a waste of our time.”

Percy apparently had not expected this because his eyes widen in actual surprise as Nico places the coffee cup down and starts into the water with a determined pace. He sits still long enough to realize Nico is headed for him, water sloshing around Nico’s shorts threateningly.

Nico can see the moment he realizes Nico’s goal, mostly because he takes a deep breath (like he needs to hold it) and disappears under the water. Nico watches him swim expertly away and can only splash after him, sand moving under his feet constantly. He stops when he feels something hard under his foot, terror racing through him at the thought of stepping on something like a crab.

Slowly, he reaches down, submerging himself, and bravely explores what exactly he stepped on. He pulls it up and stares at the fact he found a flat shell the size of Nico’s palm. Percy must have realized Nico is distracted from his attempt at chasing him, because he’s now staring over Nico’s shoulder.

“Oh wow! That’s a good one,” Percy says, enviously. He reaches to take it, but Nico pulls it to his chest. “Come on, dude, I just want to see it.”

“No, you’re not telling me things,” Nico replies with a stubborn turn of his chin.

Percy pouts and swims to face Nico. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“You obviously do,” Nico snaps, “or you wouldn’t constantly bring it up.”

“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up!” Percy argues. He sighs, like Nico is the difficult one. “Just let me see the shell. I can probably tell you how old it is.”

“I already know how old it is,” Nico tells him. Percy stares for a second.

“Really?” he asks, leaning forward slightly. Nico crosses his arms and looks away from Percy’s stupidly pretty eyes.

“Yeah,” Nico admits, suddenly slightly awkward. “Shells are basically the skeletons of certain types of mollusks.”

“Gross,” Percy says, making a face.

Nico rolls his eyes. “Not really. They’re not made of cells or anything. They’re just protective coverings, but they held life once. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’m pretty good with dead things.”

“Dude, that’s really cool.” Percy gets a look on his face. “Can you sense them? Like in the ocean right now?”

“Uh,” Nico says. “Maybe? If I focused, possibly.”

That’s how he finds himself an hour later, sitting on their manmade sandbar, directing Percy as to where the biggest shells are. As Percy swims further and further out, diving deeper each time, Nico starts to grow nervous.

“Shouldn’t you have equipment for that?” he asks. Percy looks more than fine as he sprawls in the shallow water next to Nico, sun reflecting off the drips of stubborn water trying to cling to his torso. Nico swallows.

Percy shrugs, muscles tensing and relaxing. Nico forces his attention on Percy’s face, his closed eyes towards the sky, as if he is trying to absorb the sun into his bones. “I don’t really need it. It’s not like I can drown or anything.”

“But what about water pressure?” Nico asks. “Or when divers come up too fast and their blood boils?”

Percy pops open one eye and aims it at where Nico is sitting, crosslegged, beside him. Nico’s shorts threaten to fall down every time he moves, so he’s been sticking to various sitting positions in the warmer, barely knee deep water of his sandbar. “Why? You worried?”

“Yes,” Nico tells him easily. “These shells aren’t worth it.”

The pile sits between them, each one more impressive than the next. Percy shrugs. “If we sold these, we could make a killing.”

“Nice,” Nico tells him. Percy seems to realize his own phrasing and starts to snicker.

“No, but seriously. This is worth, like, three months worth of groceries,” Percy tells him, sitting up and grabbing one of the shells. It’s large, much bigger than the original shell Nico had found.

“Why are there so many right here?” Nico asks.

Percy shrugs again. “Lack of human interference with this area?”

Nico eyes him. “I’ve been wondering about that. How did this house even get here? Or how did you even know it was here?”

Percy turns himself more towards Nico, copying his position. “I was told about it. It’s one of my father’s favorite places to stay on earth.” Nico looks at him incredulously, and Percy snickers. “Yeah, I know. But it has a history.”

“What history?” Nico prompts, resting his chin on his palm.

Percy looks a little awkward as he starts. “Well, there was this couple. You know, usual story, he was a fisher, she was from a rich family, yada yada, they get married, despite her parents disapproval. They move away from town, because her family is very large and powerful, and they both loved the view the cliff gave them, over the sea.” Nico opens his mouth, but Percy gives him a look that makes him close it.

He continues. “One day, when they were much older, the husband didn’t return on time from his fishing trip. The wife worried and prayed and worried, until months turned into years. After a year alone, she asked to be closer to the ocean, in order to be closer to her husband’s soul, prompting my dad to push the tip of the cliff to sea level.”

“That’s sad,” Nico says. “I can’t imagine being an old lady, by myself, and trying to jump those rocks to get groceries and things.”

Percy shrugged. “I think my dad took care of a lot of her stuff. Some part of him took her husband and another part of him wanted to take care of her.”

“I can’t say I would want the earth to change for me to be closer to the sea in that circumstance, though.” Nico lifts his head and looks out at the water. “I know exactly where lost souls go, and it isn’t into the water.”

“It’s part of the island’s religion, I think,” Percy tells him, “but I think I know where she’s coming from. Sometimes being near something you can’t have is all you can do.”

Nico turns to find Percy’s eyes dancing away from him. His heart speeds a little, stomach settling in him like a rock. “I could never be that selfless,” Nico admits.

Percy turns back to him in surprise. “Selfless?” he asks.

“Making yourself miserable, living in a house next to the ocean that killed the love of your life because you think he might still be out there, even if only in spirit,” Nico says with distaste. “I couldn’t do that.”

“What would you do?” Percy asks. Nico meets his eyes and smiles darkly.

“I would have found someway to try and bring them back,” Nico tells him, “or died, myself.”

“That’s horrible,” Percy says in surprise. “If they loved you, they wouldn’t want you to die for them.”

“Of course they wouldn’t,” Nico says, “but if they loved me, they would know me. They would know that the idea of breathing while they rot would not be acceptable.”

“But would you do it anyway? If they asked you too?” Percy doesn’t say Bianca’s name, and Percy shouldn’t even know about his attempt to bring Bianca back, but Nico can’t shake the feeling that’s what he’s referring to.

“Of course,” Nico says, bitterness seeping into his words. It’s a familiar taste on the tip of his tongue. “I would do anything they asked, if I loved them.”

Percy gives him another searching look. “Anything?”

“Anything,” Nico vows, sounding desolate and dark, the way promises from a child of Hades should sound.

“That’s selfless,” Percy says, sounding confused, “isn’t it?”

Nico isn’t sure what to say to that. “Not when you have me hanging around constantly like a curse.”

“You’re not a curse,” Percy argues. “If they love you, wouldn’t they want you to be around all the time?”

“The people I love don’t always love me,” Nico reminds him. Percy gets a look on his face that’s a cross between guilty and slightly awestruck.

“You felt that way about me when you were a kid?” Percy asks incredulously. “That’s pretty heavy.”

“I’m a passionate kind of guy,” Nico says awkwardly. He wasn’t expecting Percy to mention Nico’s past feelings out loud. “Must be the European in me.”

Percy rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling a little now, at least. “That’s a very adult emotion for a teenager.”

“I just wanted you to exist and be happy, and maybe think vaguely positive things about me,” Nico admits. “I would have done anything for those things to happen. Now that I’m older, I’m a bit different, but the crutch of it is the same.”

Nico takes a breath and looks at Percy’s reaction to that. Instead, he finds Percy’s eyes burning into him, and he loses whatever air had been in his lungs. He knows that look, has seen it a thousand different times in Will’s eyes, and while it’s always been powerful, Percy’s raises a storm inside Nico.

Nico finds himself leaning in slightly, drawn closer to Percy like a dying moth to a flame, and Percy eyes drift to his mouth. Something in Nico screams, yes, this is it, but then Percy is looking away, and Nico is left bare and exposed.

“Is that how it is with Will?” Percy asks, idly. Nico frowns at the change in subject.

“Will would kill me if I ever tried doing half the shit I did for you,” Nico tells him, feeling hollow. “Making him happy is pretty easy, as long as I tried to remember to eat and not die while I was away.”

Percy’s expression grows stormy. He looks hurt and guilty again. “He sounds like a good person.”

“He is,” Nico says, softly. “Too good for someone like me, honestly.”

“Not really,” Percy tells him. Nico feels his stomach drop to the base of his spine. “He sounds perfect for you, actually.”

It’s like a death sentence, but Nico is pretty used to those. He pulls his knees to his chin and wraps his arms around them. They sit in silence for a second before Percy abruptly pushes himself out of the water. He then dives into the deeper water on the side of the sandbar and looks at Nico through the pieces of his hair that fall back into his face.

“Alright, where’s the next seashell?” Percy asks.

Nico tries to keep him in the shallower water anyway, despite Percy’s attempts to go deeper. They do this for another hour before Nico forces Percy to beach himself for the day.

“Let’s make food,” Nico tells him, hands wrapped around Percy’s arm as he pulls him from the water. Percy shakes himself like a dog, water spraying onto Nico in response. Nico drops his arm. The hand he has on his shorts to keep them up almost releases as well, but he tightens it further instead. “What the hell? Are you an animal?”

Percy grins from under his dark unruly hair. “I have been living out in the wild for a while.”

“You live in a house,” Nico reminds him. “That’s hardly the wilderness.”

“But there hasn’t been anyone around to remind me about manners,” Percy argues, letting Nico lead him to the house once more. This time his hand wraps around Nico’s wrist, locking like a manacle. Percy’s palm is warm around Nico’s.

“There is now,” Nico tells him, “and shaking water onto guests is not good.”

“You talk with your mouth full all the time!” Percy say incredulously. “You’re not exactly an expert.”

“Unlike you, I actually have a real excuse,” Nico tells him, rolling his eyes.

Percy lets go of Nico to hold the door open for him. “Maybe a little bit,” Percy admits. “But you were still amongst society.”

“Sometimes,” Nico tells him. “Othertimes I was in places that no one alive really ever goes.”

“How much time have you spent in the Underworld?” Percy asks.

Nico shrugs. “How much time have you spent in New York? I have no idea.”

“Touche,” Percy says. He turns to the refrigerator. “Alright, so, what shall we eat today?”

Nico jumps up on the counter across from Percy, swinging his legs against the cabinet lightly. “I don’t care. Just make something.”

“What happened to ‘let’s make food’? Doesn’t that mean ‘we’ and not ‘you’?” Percy complains, head buried in the icebox.

“I never outright said ‘we’,” Nico teases.

They end up making sandwiches. Percy eats three, and makes Nico eat an additional half as well, complaining about how he doesn’t want to be the only person to eat multiple. Nico waits until Percy looks close to comatose before bringing up the night before.

“You still have nightmares,” Nico finally says. Percy is collapsed across the couch, his head still in Nico’s lap from his dramatic declaration of being so full he might just die. Percy cracks his eyes open one at a time, watching Nico. His face is expressionless.

“I do,” he agrees.

“And it’s not just because of the heat,” Nico states.

“No,” he admits. “It’s not.”

Nico isn’t really sure what to say now. He lets his hand sink into Percy’s hair the way it had before, while they had been curled together on Percy’s bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Percy asks. “It’s not your fault.”

“If I had been faster-”

“It’s not your fault,” Percy reiterates, sitting up. He turns towards Nico, so close Nico can pick out a single freckle near his left ear. “Nico, you should know that by now.”

“You both could have died,” Nico says, feeling like he’s lost control of yet another conversation. “I should have done something.”

“We survived, and we had each other. That was what mattered, in the end,” Percy tells him. “It wasn’t your fault we fell, but it’s with your help that we lived.”

Nico shakes his head. “That was mostly Hazel and the others.”

“You saved the camp.”

“I helped,” Nico corrects.

Percy groans in frustration. “Why are you so difficult?"

Nico crosses his arms. “I’m just honest with myself.”

“Hardly!” Percy argues. “You’re just blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault.”

“This is totally beside the point,” Nico snaps. “We’re talking about your nightmares.”

Percy gives him a weary look. “What is there to talk about?” He settles back against Nico’s legs, but Nico suspects it’s so he doesn’t have to look at him. He butts his head against Nico’s hand until Nico caves and starts carding his fingers through his hair again.

“You tell me,” Nico says. “What are they about?”

“You know what they’re about.” Percy’s eyes stay closed, but Nico finds himself trying to read his expression anyway.

“I have them too, sometimes,” Nico tells him. Percy’s eyes open.

“I can’t imagine,” Percy says, sympathetically. “You were all on your own, and you… Saw.”

“I did,” Nico says, trying not to think about the feeling of traveling inside something, of walking on the back of something, in the cruelest sense, alive. “I probably wouldn’t have made it out, if I hadn’t been captured.”

Percy doesn’t give him a useless platitude, the way Hazel had when he had told her. Instead, he looks at Nico’s face and gives him a weak, wordless smile.

Without speaking about it, when night falls and both Percy and Nico have changed from worn clothes into clean pajamas, Nico follows Percy to his room. He stands by the door and waits. Percy gives him a look and automatically walks to the bed, falling down onto it. Nico knows this is crossing some kind of line, but Percy says nothing as Nico enters the room and sits down across from him.

Percy is watching him, he can tell, can feel it on his skin like a physical touch. Nico takes a leap and scoots backwards before lying down, resting his head on one of the pillows. Percy’s head is level with Nico’s chest now, and Nico has to curl himself slightly to look at him.

Something has set in Percy’s face, and where there had been a previous type of hesitance, now there is nothing but the type of determination that would make Nico nervous had they been in a battle of some kind. Percy rolls himself upwards and towards Nico, resting his head on the pillow opposite.

While Nico rests on his side, Percy is sprawled on his back, but their hands still meet in the middle of the bed between them. Percy is still watching him, like Nico has somehow only now become tangible and Percy can’t believe he’s in the flesh right next to him.

Nico curls himself further into Percy’s space, and Percy lets him, welcomes him, fitting himself to let Nico fill the spaces he leaves. It’s the most comfortable and most excited Nico has felt in a while, lying like this, and for a while he thinks he might not be able to sleep. He’s proven wrong almost immediately, his attention drawn to the feeling of Percy’s breath moving his hair.

It’s dreamless and deep, but Percy doesn’t wake up screaming. It’s some of the best sleep Nico has ever had, and he’s almost disappointed when it ends.

Nico wakes up alone but still warm. His face is planted firmly in the pillow, his hands reaching out for a body that isn’t there. He shifts a little, turning onto his back and stares at the ceiling. He guesses Percy is out in the water already, though, judging by the growing amount of light pouring in through the door to the hallway, it’s later in the day than he expected.

He forces himself up and to the kitchen, going through the motions of making coffee without thought. He grabs a cup and wonders if his other mug is still by the water. It probably was swept away in the water by the tide last night. Hopefully, Percy wasn’t too attached to it.

Taking his coffee, he moves out to the beach and deliberately sits next to Willy’s tree. She’s watching Percy with a look that even more sad than it had been. Then again, Nico could be projecting.

Percy moves with an elegance that makes him almost indistinguishable in the water. He doesn’t look as close to done as he usually is, and Nico wonders if he’s swimming more or if he also had a late start.

“He likes you,” Willy starts. It sounds like an accusation, and Nico curls his legs a little closer to him.

“Maybe,” Nico says. There’s a hope there, at least, warmth that grows stronger with each passing minute.

Willy looks disgusted. “Humans are so fickle.”

“You knew I liked him before I did,” Nico reminds her.

“I knew you loved him. None of this ‘liking’,” she counters. Her hair flares around her like a halo for a moment.

“They’re not that different,” he explains. “I don’t want to use that word though.”

“Love?” she asks, surprised.

Nico nods solemnly. “Love seems like too nice a word for this.”

Willy looks like she understands. “Sometimes, humans try to use words where words do not belong.”

“Not all of us are wise palm trees,” Nico tells her smartly. She gives him another glare.

They stay silent until Percy starts back towards them. Nico forces himself up and moves closer to the beach. It feels wrong, somehow, having Percy naively glowing at Nico while Willy hangs out and waves around in the breeze. As he distances himself from Willy’s tree, his heartbeat picks up, speeding with every foot Percy gains towards him.

Watching Percy walk out of the water should be an old sight by now, but Nico doesn’t think he could ever grow immune to it, nonetheless. Especially not the way he grins when he sees Nico, which should also probably start losing its novelty. If anything, Nico just feels the immediate urge to smile back.

Percy moves quickly over to where he’s standing, immediately invading Nico’s space, like he is made to be there, and every part of Nico relaxes in agreement. Nico gives him a small smile, making Percy’s smile grow even larger.

“Hi,” Percy says, swaying towards Nico as if magnetized.

Nico angles his face upwards, the sun pouring on his face despite Percy blocking the majority of the sunrise. “Hey,” he finds himself replying, just above a whisper despite them being almost entirely alone.

“You slept in my bed last night,” Percy tells him, like Nico hadn’t been there. Nico’s face heats, but he doesn’t think Percy can tell.

“I did,” Nico confirms. “Your mattress is better than mine.”

Percy’s arms clasp Nico’s arms. Nico’s hands shake where their gripping the coffee mug. “Consider this an open invitation,” Percy tells him. “I slept really well.”

“I’ve been told that’s a talent of mine,” Nico tells him, staring intently at Percy’s mouth before looking back into Percy’s eyes.

Something changes in his expression. “Really? Sleep with other people often?” It isn’t accusatory. It’s bland, almost emotionless, and Nico regrets his inability with words.

“No,” Nico says quickly. “Not like that. Just, sometimes when I stay with people, they sleep better.”

“That doesn’t sound like an attribute of Hades,” Percy says, face clearing slightly. He’s leaning in again, and Nico can feel how warm he is from exercising. He wants to just reach out and touch, and while he’s sure Percy will let him, he doesn’t want to ruin whatever they have if he’s wrong.

“Sleep is almost like death,” Nico responds idly, mostly distracted by the way Percy’s face is so close to his.

“You don’t dream in death,” Percy argues.

“Don’t you?” Percy’s snicker makes him lean in more. Nico’s hands slip with the mug, and the coffee pours onto Percy’s foot.

Percy reacts almost immediately, jerking away and swaying towards him at the same time. He collides into an apologizing Nico, and they fall to the ground. Percy wraps his arms around Nico’s head in a protective move. Nico feels his breath leave him and then the feeling of being squashed as Percy’s body collapses on top of his own.

“Oh, gods, are you okay?” Percy asks immediately. Nico’s breathlessness turns into laughter, and Percy just looks even more worried. “Did you hit your head?”

“Are you okay?” Nico asks between laughs. “The coffee was pretty hot.”

“I’ve had worse,” Percy says idly, looking at Nico who is sprawled on the sand below him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nico dismisses, still giggling. Percy looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “Really. Endorphins and adrenaline and all that.”

Percy smiles and sits back on his legs, letting Nico sit up in front of him. Suddenly, they’re close again, and Nico is just so sick of being close but not close enough.

Nico reaches out, cupping Percy’s cheek and moving towards him. His forehead rests against Percy’s, and whatever courage that got him there leaves him. For a second, they do nothing more than share the breath between them. Nico stares at Percy, waiting for one of them to move.

“Nico, we shouldn’t,” Percy says, and something in Nico cheers and boos at the same time.

“Why not?” he asks. He finds his courage and moves his mouth a little closer, gratified by Percy closing his eyes, looking like he’s struggling not to just move in. “No one else here but you, me, and Willy.”

“Will,” Percy hisses out. “Aren’t you back with Will?”

Everything stops for half a second.

“You think I would still be here if Will and I had gotten back together?” Nico snaps out, pushing Percy away from him. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“You said you used to travel all the time, when you first started dating,” Percy says, staring from his place on his butt, like Nico’s reaction is totally uncalled for.

“This is his worst nightmare,” Nico growls. “Me leaving him for you was something he expected, but me cheating on him? It would break him. I would never do that to anyone.”

“I’m not saying you would! That’s why I said we should stop!” Percy yells back.

“I wouldn’t even put myself in that situation, Percy!” Nico forces himself to his feet and glares at him. He makes a motions back and forth between them as he adds, “This thing I have for you was supposed to stay unrequited, and the moment I thought it wasn’t, I took a step back.”

“I-”

“No, listen, okay? I thought it over and made my choice, then made sure Will knew we were over, because I was hoping I would come back, and you would want me just as badly as I want you, missed me just as much I missed you,” Nico says. He looks away, because the intense look on Percy’s face is almost too much.

“I do! I did! Nico, this is just a misunderstanding, okay? They happen all the time in relationships,” Percy says calmly.

Nico falls back down into the sand with a plop. “Do you really think I could cheat on someone like that?” he asks. Percy crawls over to him, cupping his cheek with a sandy palm.

“No,” he says quietly. “but I thought I might be the kind of person to try and coerce you into it.”

Nico looks up, and Percy’s eyes are so green, and he’s wanted for so long. “I really like you,” he says lamely.

“I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say I feel the same,” Percy tells him, and leans in. Something occurs to Nico.

“Do you really want to have a relationship with me?” Nico blurts. Percy groans and pulls away.

“Yes, you stubborn asshole.” Percy presses their foreheads together again. “I want a relationship with you.”

“It won’t be easy,” Nico warns, voice barely above a whisper. Percy starts shaking his head, but Nico continues, before Percy can cut him off. “I’ll always be upset about some things, and I have a temper. I’m always bitter, and I think I have it worse than everyone else, and I’ve been working on that for the past couple of years, but I still get really depressed.” Nico pauses. “It’s not going to be easy at all.”

“Good thing I’ve always been up for a challenge,” Percy tells him, half grinning. Nico rolls his eyes.

“This isn’t the same as making the girl who acted like she hated you admit she likes you,” Nico finds himself muttering. “It’s not going to be like it was with Annabeth.”

“I don’t know if you noticed or not,” Percy says smartly, “but it’s not Annabeth I’m with right now.”

Nico gives Percy a long look before he leans in and just lets himself take. His mouth moves against Percy’s naturally, and it feels like relief. He lets his hand curl into Percy’s wild, windswept hair and pull him infinitesimally closer.

Percy’s body covers Nico’s, warmth in every place they touch ratcheting up into an electric energy. His mouth practically burns Nico’s, and Nico makes up for what he’s lacking in heat with pressure, sliding their mouths together. Percy’s hand rests on his hip before sliding up under the shirt he slept in, touching bare skin. Nico gasps without meaning to, suddenly wanting everything.

“We’re not doing this on the beach,” Nico tells him, pulling away. Percy is undeterred, instead moving to kiss his jaw. He moves down to Nico’s neck, and Nico’s hand grasps at his back, pulling him closer. “I’m serious. No sex on the beach.”

“You say that but,” Percy trails off as he slides his teeth along the skin of Nico’s neck, outlining Nico’s tattoo. A noise slips from Nico’s mouth.

“I say that and I mean that,” Nico argues after a second of letting Percy lightly nip at his sensitive skin. Percy groans again.

“Why? It’s just us here, remember?” Percy argues. He moves himself more firmly against Nico, readjusting his position in a way that’s almost enough to convince Nico.

“Sand is gross,” Nico tells him, “and I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to stop myself if we keep this up.”

Percy’s mouth catches his own for a second, and Nico can’t help but respond, letting himself fall into the kiss. He feels giddy, drunk on the feeling of Percy’s skin and his fingers in Percy’s hair. Nico almost forgets what he was saying before getting lost in the feeling of Percy’s mouth on his.

“I’m serious,” he says, pulling away and panting. Percy nods, nosing the skin of Nico’s neck again. “Really.” Nico makes to get up, reluctantly unclenching his hands, to prove how serious he is.

Pulling away and standing, Percy reaches out to pull Nico up to his feet. Nico’s hand stays in Percy’s as he stands, and he can’t stop himself from leaning in to snatch a kiss, just because he can. The feeling of getting on his tiptoes is familiar, but Percy’s enthusiasm that seems to influence everything he does is not.

Nico tugs Percy’s hand, weaving their fingers together. Slowly, they make their way to the house. The front door finds Percy pressed up against it, Nico’s leg in between the two of his. He’s leaning down, leaning forward, trying to get as close to Nico as Nico will let him despite the grip on his wrists and the way they’re held against the wood of the door. His mouth chases Nico’s as he pulls away.

“Inside, inside,” Nico mutters, letting his harsh grip on Percy’s wrists loosen. Percy uses his new freedom to grab Nico’s shirt and practically yank him through the doorway. They stumble into the main room, and when Percy makes for the couch, Nico pulls back. “No, nope, we’re doing this in a bed or not at all.”

Percy looks like he wants to test that statement, and he would probably find that Nico is bluffing. He wraps his arms around Nico’s waist and kisses the spot he found earlier, making Nico go practically boneless. “Really? Not at all?”

Nico wants to give a properly sarcastic retort, but Percy’s skin feels fantastic under his hands as he slides them up the plains of his chest. He then pushes Percy back, in the direction of the bedroom. Percy laughs and reaches out, unable to stop touching Nico for even half a second. It’s intoxicating, having Percy pull Nico to him and want him to stay there.

Percy leans in for another kiss and Nico pulls away, making Percy chase him. “Bedroom,” Nico tells him, and Percy gives him another dark grin. He leans again, and this time Nico lets him. They stumble backwards, Percy trying to keep his mouth on Nico’s, something Nico finds incredibly admirable.

The moment Percy pushes Nico onto the bed is something Nico tries to mentally capture and keep for later. Percy crawls on top of him, leaning down to press a light kiss to Nico’s mouth. “So glad you’re all mine,” Percy murmurs. Nico’s chest constricts.

“Shut up,” Nico tells him, but it sounds more fond than annoyed. He reaches a hand up, palm on the back of Percy’s neck, and brings Percy’s mouth back to his. Percy doesn’t seem to mind, just kisses him as easily as he swims and breathes and laughs, and Nico hates him for a second for making this so inevitable.

When it becomes clear that Percy would be perfectly fine with doing nothing but kissing for the rest of their natural lives, Nico wraps a leg around one of Percy’s own and flips them. Percy’s intake of breath in surprise is strangely hot and gratifying at the same time, and he looks to hear it again as he grinds down against Percy. What he gets is so much better, and Percy’s half-choked off moan will probably play in Nico’s shower fantasies for the next of forever.

Nico leans back, legs on either side of Percy’s waist, and lets himself stare, soak in the details. Percy beneath him is all skin and dry, skin tight swimsuit that makes Nico’s heart beat a little faster. His hair is even more tousled than usual, and Nico lets himself reach out and run his fingers through it, just to watch Percy’s body relax.

Percy’s eyes are watching Nico with an excited sort of apprehension that shakes Nico to his bones, makes him want to draw this out and watch Percy unravel before him like an intricately woven sweater. He leans down, kissing Percy lightly, moving the hand in Percy’s hair to run his knuckles on the side of Percy’s face. “It’s really unfair how gorgeous you are,” Nico tells him, whispers it against his mouth conversationally.

He pulls away, enjoying the way Percy’s chest rises and falls rapidly with his quick breathing but his eyes stay entirely focused on Nico. Nico traces a hand over Percy’s skin, fingers barely touching. He wants to make Percy realize what a work of art he is. He wants to tear him to shreds.

Something clicks in his head as he moves himself against Percy’s groin. Percy’s wide, wild eyes watch him so intently because this is his first time with another guy. Suddenly, Nico feels like a huge asshole. He stops and moves back to kiss Percy, making it soft and chaste. “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to,” he promises him, even though it practically kills him to do so. Nico’s suffered worse than a case of blueballs, and he would rather Percy be 100 percent about the proceedings.

“Nico,” Percy breathes against his lips. “Just, please.” He gives Nico a look like he wants but doesn’t know what for. Nico smiles and kisses him again, drags his bottom lip between his teeth and bites lightly.

“Okay,” Nico whispers in the gasping air between them. “Okay.”

He kisses lightly down Percy’s neck, letting Percy curl his arms around Nico’s back with a pleased sigh. Moving down to Percy’s clavicle and then chest, Nico alternates between gentle kisses and the scratch of teeth, wondering at the raising of gooseflesh and gasps shocks of teeth bring. Percy isn’t loud, but he is expressive, his hands either digging into Nico’s back as he sucks bruises along Percy’s ribs or tracing the bumps of Nico’s spine in gentle encouragement with each soft exploration of Nico’s tongue.

The swimsuit really hides nothing, but Nico can’t help but be annoyed by its presence anyway. Nico locks eyes and leans down, kissing Percy’s clothed dick. Percy makes a noise like he’s dying, green eyes still meeting Nico’s. A rush of something sends chills down Nico’s spine, enough so that he can ignore the vague salty taste of the ocean that still clings to the fabric of the suit.

Nico brings his hands down Percy’s chest and uses his thumbs to pull at the waistband of Percy’s swimsuit. Percy lifts his hips eagerly, wiggling in way of encouragement, and Nico traces the skin right under the band, rubbing patterns. He takes his time, revealing inch by inch of skin, and alternates between kissing and just watching. Percy looks utterly wrecked by the time Nico gets the suit halfway down his thighs, and Nico takes pity on him, tugging the suit the rest of the way down his legs. He lets Percy kick it off and resituates himself between Percy’s legs.

Percy opens his mouth to speak but visibly chokes on the words as Nico tongues the tip of his dick. Nico takes that as encouragement and does so again, this time wrapping one of his hands around the base. He gives a half pump that makes Percy’s hips jerk.

“Sorry, sorry,” Percy gasps out, body tensing as Nico ignores him and pumps him again. “Gods, okay, that is-”

Nico moves himself to the side so he’s able to lean up and kiss him. “Percy,” Nico says into Percy’s mouth, starting a slow pace.

“Yes?” Percy asks, stomach clenching so beautifully, for a second Nico is distracted in just watching.

“Don’t apologize,” Nico tells him. He twists his wrist a little at the end of this stroke, and Percy makes another one of his choked off noises. “Just save it for later.”

“What?” Percy asks, but Nico kisses him again. He’s rougher this time, speeding his hand in time. Percy’s mouth opens in a silent moan, and Nico traces the inside of his mouth before pulling away once more.

With Percy bare before him and reacting so enthusiastically from just his hand, Nico’s brilliantly hard in his pants, and he knows it’s only going to get more intense before he gets any relief. He moves his way back down Percy’s body, mouthing at the place where Percy’s groin meets his leg for a moment.

“Please, please,” Percy gasps, and Nico tries not to shake with how badly he wants. He mouths at the sides of Percy’s cock, tracing his way up to the tip. Percy’s whole body is tense, tight bundled muscles that make Nico want to treat every inch of his skin like this. Instead, he lets the tip enter his mouth.

The taste is different from Will’s, more salty than anything, and Nico thinks of the taste of the ocean before he can stop himself. He takes a little more into his mouth, sucking lightly as he pulls off again.

Percy is watching him when Nico looks up, looking at him with such heat and something else Nico can’t name, that something in Nico automatically settles. He smirks a little before taking Percy back into his mouth again, keeping their eyes locked as he takes him deeper and deeper.

“Oh, fuck,” Percy says, and it’s incredible for Nico’s ego, considering how rarely Percy swears. “Holy shitting fuck.”

Nico wants to tell him that dirty language doesn’t suit him, but his mouth is full and he would be lying. Nico takes him most of the way, wrapping his hand around the part he can’t reach, and begins to actually suck Percy off instead of teasing the poor guy into insanity.

He tongues what he can as he sucks, can feel Percy trying his best not to move in every twitch he gives off, and Nico just wants. Using his free hand to rub himself through his pants, he can’t help but moan.

Percy is watching; Nico isn’t really sure how he knows, because he’s closed his eyes and just let himself feel at this point, but he knows Percy is. Nico wonders if Percy can see him slip his hand into his own shorts and wrap it around his dick, moving in time to his mouth on Percy.

The thought makes his hand move faster, and Nico almost forgets whatever pace he had previously had. Percy thrusts up, filling Nico’s mouth, and oh, yeah, that was the plan. Nico stops using his hand on Percy and moves it to brace himself on the bed, relaxing his throat. He opens his eyes and gives Percy a look that must say all that needs to be said.

Percy’s hand reaches over to trace where Nico’s mouth is wrapped around him, thumb grazing against Nico’s lip. Nico shivers, and Percy lets himself thrust shallowly into Nico’s mouth. Percy moves his hand upwards until it’s tangled in Nico’s hair.

 _Holding me in place_ , Nico thinks, moves his hand in his pants a little faster. Percy seems to be of the same mind because this thrusts grow a little bolder, a little deeper, and it’s apparently Percy’s turn to watch as Nico falls apart because his eyes never leave Nico.

Percy fucks Nico’s face with the kind mix of enthusiasm and affection Nico would expect, but the way his hand clenches in Nico’s hair is what sends Nico over the edge, freezing as he comes in his pants like he’s sixteen all over again. He kind of loses it for a second, can’t breathe or think, has the smell of Percy all around him. He thinks the moaning does something to Percy, because suddenly he’s holding Nico’s lax body as he fucks up into Nico’s mouth, quick and hard in a way he hadn’t been before.

It takes maybe a couple minutes after that before Percy comes down Nico’s throat with a low groan. Nico tries not to choke, doing what he can to swallow. “Shit, shit,” Percy says as he comes down, hand absently stroking Nico’s hair. Nico rests his messy face on Percy’s thigh, panting like he’s run a mile. “Sorry, fucking hell, that was just…”

“Yeah,” Nico agrees, his voice sounding gravelly and like he’s been well and truly fucked.

Percy sprawls backwards, whole body going limp the second his head hits the pillow. He looks down at where Nico is still pressing his face against the skin of his leg. He pats the spot next to him, saying, “Come here.”

Nico holds up his hand, swallowing and taking another deep breath. When he thinks he’s capable, he moves upwards, falling more on top of Percy than on the actual mattress. Percy doesn’t seem to mind, burying his face into Nico’s hair and wrapping his arms around Nico’s body.

“You didn’t even take your clothes off,” Percy complains, fingering the shirt that Nico had wiped his mouth on. Percy’s hand returns to rubbing soothing circles into Nico’s back after a second.

“Next time,” Nico promises into Percy’s neck. He moves, feeling the mess he made in his pants, and frowns. “Or in a second. I need a shower.”

“You want me to shower with you?” Percy asks hesitantly.

Nico pulls back and gives him a look. “Only if you want to.”

“Duh,” Percy says. He looks a little nervous though. “I feel bad about not…” He makes a vaguely dirty hand motion and Nico snorts.

“Don’t feel bad, goofweed. You’ve got time to make it up to me,” Nico reminds him, reaching out to cup Percy’s face. He leans in to kiss him automatically before pulling back suddenly. “Oh, you might not want to kiss me.”

Percy gives him a look before leaning in and kissing him thoroughly. Nico blinks at him owlishly when he pulls away again. Percy smiles brightly at him. “Shower time.”

Nico groans but gets up, letting Percy pull him to the bathroom. Percy seems to relish the ability to strip off Nico’s clothes, running his hands over what feels like every inch of Nico’s skin before finally letting him step into the water and jumping in behind him.

If Nico had thought Percy was touchy before, it’s nothing compared to now. In the water, Percy’s hands seem to be everywhere at once, his chest pressed against Nico’s back, chin tucked over his shoulder. Nico feels the stirrings of something, and between the touching and the hot water, he can’t really help his reaction. Percy doesn’t seem bothered, just kisses his neck and moves his hand downwards.

Which is how Nico finds himself coaching Percy through giving a handjob, taking turns showing Percy what he likes and bracing himself against the tile wall as Percy takes over, rubbing his own now-hard dick against Nico’s lower back. Nico has that feeling of being enveloped inside Percy once more and comes embarrassingly fast. Percy’s dick his hard against his back, and it only takes Nico a minute to grab the few brain cells he has left to offer him a hand.

They actually shower, once Percy comes, face pressed into Nico’s soaked hair and panting against Nico’s ear, then traipse their way back to Percy’s bed.

Even with the early hour of the day and Nico’s previous easy rest, they fall asleep pretty quickly, their hands wrapped around one another in the space between them. When Nico wakes up again, he has an oppressive heat all around him. He wants to kick the blanket off, at first, up until the moment he realizes it’s a person.

Nico cracks open one eye to find Percy three-fourths of the way on top of him, head tucked under Nico’s chin. It’s the first time he’s woken up and had Percy near by, or even been awake at a time when Percy was asleep. He lifts one of his arms and wraps it around Percy protectively, playing with the hair at the base of Percy’s neck.

Percy makes a noise that’s so pathetic, Nico almost feels bad. He wakes a couple minutes later, yawning loudly. He looks at Nico and turns a deep pink. Nico smirks. “Morning,” he says, merrily.

“Morning,” Percy says, voice soft. He looks like he’s in the good kind of shock, like something spectacularly unexpected has happened, and Nico wonders at what an idiot he is, that they both are. “Well, night, but still.”

Nico wiggles from under Percy, stretching out as much as he can with a guy that’s taller than him sprawled across his chest. “Pleasant dreams?”

Percy snickers. “Something like that.”

Nico gives him a look. “Don’t be childish,” he says through a badly hidden smile. Percy leans up and kisses him, and it takes Nico aback for a second. He reaches out, wanting to ground Percy to him.

It takes them a while to get out of bed, if only because Percy insists now that it’s night time, they should try and sleep again. Nico refuses to hear it, practically forces Percy out of the bed and into a pair of boxers that do very little from keeping any part of Percy away from Nico’s prying eyes.

Percy doesn’t seem to mind, definitely doesn’t mind when Nico doesn’t even bother with boxers, instead wrapping one of the loose sheets around himself like a toga.

“You look like you’ve been hanging around Jason too much,” Percy tells him, and Nico laughs.

“I probably have.” Nico trains his face into Jason’s standing strict expression. “‘Come on, Jackson, it’s proper dress, unlike tee shirts.’”

Percy laughs outright. “You do that horribly,” Percy tells him. Nico shrugs.

“It’s because I look like I should be thrown in jail on sight,” Nico explains. “Jason just looks like he probably helps little old ladies in his spare time.”

“He probably does,” Percy says with a peculiar look on his face. “Did I tell you about the time I almost threw an old lady version of Hera into the Typheus?”

Nico laughs. “That would have been good. Definitely would not have backfired at all.”

Percy rolls his eyes. “That was the moment I knew I would never be the guy who helps little old ladies.”

“Percy, you helped the little old lady despite knowing she’s actually the goddess who was messing with you,” Nico says, giving him an incredulous look. “You are the definition of the guy who helps people for practically no reason.”

Percy shakes his head. “I’ve been told I look like trouble.”

“Looks can be deceiving.” Percy is giving Nico a long look, like he’s trying to piece something together. “What?” Nico asks, self-consciously.

“Nothing, it’s just-” Percy stops. He shifts where he’s leaning against the counter. “I wasn’t kidding, when I said you’re the only person I can talk to.”

Nico’s heart speeds, but he relaxes himself outwardly, giving Percy an assessing look. “What does that mean exactly?”

“I have no idea,” Percy admits. “But I mean it a little more literal than it sounds.”

Annabeth’s worries confirmed, Nico nods. “So you can’t talk to anyone?”

“It’s like they can’t hear me,” Percy explains, hands moving quickly. His frustration is evident. “I tried messaging people, but it never went out, and when it seemed like no one was messaging me, I stopped trying. I tried talking to the locals, but the moment I did, they just stared at me and walked away, like they couldn’t hear me.”

“The only person you could talk to was Willy,” Nico continues for him.

“Yeah,” Percy says, and his shoulders slump. “Then, Annabeth came. She talked at me for a while before it seemed to click that I hadn’t said a word, despite the fact I had been talking back to her the whole time. She got mad, yelled at me, and left.”

Nico nods sympathetically. “She seemed really upset about that.”

“It was horrible. It’s always horrible when Annabeth gets upset, because her eyes get all teary. It makes you feel like the worst person on earth,” Percy tells him, like Nico has never seen Annabeth angry before.

“I remember,” Nico comments. Percy gives him a look.

“She yelled at you?”

“Not recently,” Nico tells him. “But she is worried about you.”

Percy sighs. He stares off for a second, before turning back to Nico, moving towards him and boxing him up against the counter. “And then you showed up, messing with my tree.”

“And you could talk to me,” Nico finishes, trying to not let Percy distract him with the way he’s biting his lip. “Do you have a suspicion as to why you can’t talk to anyone but me or a dryad?”

“Well, obviously, the dryad was overlooked,” Percy says, moving his face in closer. Nico holds onto the edges of his resolve. “But you’re a mystery.”

“Overlooked by who?” Nico asks, feeling himself relax into Percy’s arms as they wrap around him.

Percy makes a humming noise as he leans in closer. When Nico turns his head slightly, trying to keep Percy on track with the conversation, he leans down and starts kissing the place he had found on Nico’s neck before. One of his hands on Nico’s back slips under the makeshift toga, resting itself on the bare skin of Nico’s lower back.

Nico stares up at the ceiling of the kitchen and prays for strength from literally any god that could possibly be listening. “Percy,” Nico says, trying not to sound as affected as he is. “You were telling me about that thing."

“That thing,” Percy agrees before biting the place where Nico’s neck meets his shoulder, right over his tattoo. Nico is starting pick up on a pattern. Nico’s hands find their way to Percy’s chest, fingers twitching like he can’t decide whether he wants to push Percy away or pull him closer.

“Perc-” Nico cuts off a noise. “Percy, I’m serious. Overlooked by who?”

Percy sighs and drapes himself over Nico. He’s so warm all the time, Nico wonders if he’s just permanently running a fever. “Don’t be mad.”

Nico feels stirrings of irritation mixing in with his growing dread. “What did you do,” Nico demands.

“I didn’t mean to,” Percy protests, pulling away to look at Nico. “Really, I didn’t even notice I had said something, and then I just couldn’t talk to anyone.”

“Percy,” Nico says, giving him a look.

“I may have asked a god for a favor,” Percy admits.

Nico resists the urge to facepalm. “You did what?” he asks, incredulously.

“I mean, I was trying to contact my dad, so I tried to send a message through Hermes-” Percy starts, pulling away completely to use his hands. Nico watches with the most disbelieving look he thinks he might have ever worn.

“You couldn’t just Iris Message him or pray or something?” Nico snaps out, watching Percy grow more defensive.

“He wasn’t answering!” Percy raises his hands up in a helpless gesture. “All I wanted was a place where I could-"

“Well no fucking wonder, then,” Nico snaps out, feeling a worry-fueled anger win out against disbelief. “He probably knew how stupid your plan was.”

“I just wanted to be alone, okay! It made sense at the time,” Percy argues back, voice raising in volume slightly.

Nico responds in kind with a loud, “And look where that got you! You pissed off a god! Hermes, who is like the gentle breeze of gods, personality-wise!”

Percy opens his mouth and then closes it. “I don’t even know what I did. I just asked him to ask my dad if he knew of a place I could stay, and then he was all like, ‘Oh, I can answer that question,’ and took me here.”

“Free of charge?” Nico asks. “He just helped you, no questions asked?”

“I have saved the gods’ collective asses more than once,” Percy snaps.

“That doesn’t usually mean much when it comes to their services,” Nico reminds him, clenching his hands to avoid just slapping Percy until he sees sense. “What else did you say?”

Percy stills very suddenly. “He told me that it was a stupid idea,” he admits.

Nico has that growing sense of dread again. “What did you say?”

“I told him that I deserved a little space after all the time I’ve given to saving the world,” Percy says, almost quietly. Nico rolls his eyes so hard, he may have strained something. “I was emotional! I was still raw, and everything just felt so weird. I was really down on myself when I first got here.”

Nico’s hand flies to his forehead and then moves through his tangled hair. He has spent the past day in bed with an idiot. “You can’t blame the gods, Percy, not out loud or to their face. That is like rule number fucking one to being a demigod.”

“That’s bullshit,” Percy says bluntly, then bites his lip. “Okay, yeah, I see your point. But he said I wouldn’t make it a week!”

“You sure proved him wrong,” Nico tells him sarcastically. “It sounds like you’ve been having the time of your life.”

“I wanted to leave literally three days in,” Percy admits miserably. Nico takes a second to let it sink in; he’s wearing  bed sheet in a godly hidden cove with the world’s most gorgeous idiot looking as distraught as anything in a pair to too tight boxers. The anger, the worry, all of it dissipates. Maybe it’s some kind of sun or sex induced mania, but Nico snorts out a laugh. Percy rewards him with a glare. “It’s not funny. I can’t believe I’m so stupid.”

“You are,” Nico agrees, but he moves to where Percy is standing and reaches out, placing a hand on Percy’s face. “but the good news is you have me here. We’re going to fix this, and then you’re going to stop hiding from your problems.”

“I can’t believe you’re the one telling me not to run from my problems,” Percy says, arms already reciprocating Nico’s embrace.

“I know,” Nico teases, standing on his tiptoes to place a kiss on Percy’s mouth. “I guess time makes fools of us all.”

Percy gives him a teasing grin that makes Nico want to kiss him again. “Or mature adults, in your case.”

“The most mature,” Nico says. “Running towards one problem to get away from the other is definitely what all the smart adults do.”

Percy nods. “We’re a dynamic duo.”

Nico rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling inspite of himself. “Alright, genius, let’s figure this out. Have you tried apologizing?”

Percy buries his face in Nico’s hair instead of responding. Nico takes it as a ‘no’.

Nico sighs. “Well, the good news is Hermes is a pretty level-headed guy. Maybe if you tell him what you just told me, he’ll put an end to all of this.”

“Do we have to do it right now?” Percy whines. It’s muffled by the utter mess that is Nico’s hair right now. Nico can feel the vibrations through his scalp and wants to laugh again. He thinks he might be losing it.

“We should get dressed first,” Nico grudgingly admits. Percy’s hand is on Nico’s back again, and the way it pulls Nico a little closer says Percy has other ideas. Nico’s heart jackrabbits in speed.

“Should we?” Percy asks, right up against Nico’s ear. Nico fights a shiver.

“Hm,” Nico says, tone all fake innocence. “I can’t really think of anything else to do.”

Percy grabs Nico’s hips and pulls Nico flush against him. “I can offer suggestions.”

“I bet you can,” Nico says dryly, sounding a bit breathless even to his own ears. Percy gives him a wicked grin, similar to the one Nico often sees before Percy tries something risky. Nico finds himself angling his face towards Percy anyway instead of bracing himself the way he should.

Percy only stops grinning to kiss the oxygen right out of Nico. Nico thinks of his hesitation when he first arrived and thinks about his inability to stop what he knew was coming, up until the point his thoughts are drowned out by the feeling of Percy’s tongue in his mouth. Nico’s arms wrap around Percy’s neck, one hand already moving towards his sex-tousled hair, and all he can think of is the lack of oxygen, the feeling of being smothered.

He backs Nico up against the counter, one hand under Nico’s sheet and the other holding onto the granite behind them. A drawer handle digs into Nico’s leg, but he can’t bring himself to care, just widens the space between his thighs enough for Percy’s to slide between them. Nico uses his arm around Percy’s shoulder to grab the back of Percy’s neck and pull him closer, mouthing at the skin at Percy’s pulse point.

The noise that Percy makes sends jolts down to Nico’s toes, and the hand at Nico’s back digs in further, grinding them together. Nico groans into the skin of Percy’s neck, hips jerking against Percy’s.

He pulls away slightly, tugging at his own sheet. “Off,” he complains, and Percy graciously helps, looking at Nico like he’s never had a better idea than to get naked right there in the kitchen. The sheet falls to the ground and Percy takes its place, wrapping himself around Nico, all wild, warm hands and eager mouth. His hand rests on Nico’s lower back only to slide lower now that it can, grabbing Nico’s ass.

Nico snickers, feeling bubbles in his blood. His snicker chokes off into a moan as Percy grinds himself against him, hand on Nico’s ass adding a perfect amount of pressure. “Shit,” he says, and Percy agrees, nods, and kisses his mouth like they had never stopped.

Percy makes a frustrated noise as Nico rubs against him again, and when he tries to pull away, Nico can’t help the whining sound that slips out. “Just,” Percy gasps. He reaches down and works on the boxers he’s still wearing. Nico’s hands originally move to help but end up stroking Percy through the fabric. The way Percy’s body tenses is so fascinating, Nico finds himself rubbing his palm against him again.

“Nico,” Percy begs, and it’s like a shot of pure fire into Nico’s groin. He grips the waistband and yanks, and together they manage to get Percy’s boxers nearly halfway down his thighs before Nico grips him again. “Fuck. Oh, shit, fuck, fuck.”

“Language,” Nico says with a wicked smile. Percy just leans in and kisses him, only to gasp against his mouth as Nico pumps his cock again. Percy moves to rest his head against Nico’s shoulder, back tensing and bent like a bow as Nico works him. Nico whispers into Percy’s ear, “It’s actually really hot, watching you fall apart.”

Percy makes a noise and bites Nico’s shoulder, making Nico choke on his words. A hand wraps around Nico’s own aching cock, bumping into his own hand awkwardly. It takes a second, but they work out a rhythm. Percy makes a noise with every noise Nico makes, and Nico thinks of how fast Percy had come with Nico moaning around his dick.

“Percy,” Nico groans as Percy’s hand works Nico a little faster. He accidentally loosens his own grip, only to tighten it and work Percy faster as well. It feels a little competitive, trying to see who will break first, and Nico can’t help but think he’s going to win.

He’s wrong, coming as Percy’s teeth bury themselves in his skin on a particularly violent pump on Percy’s cock. Percy is quick to follow, apparently just as affect by watching Nico lose it as Nico is watching him.

“Holy fuck,” Percy gasps out, nuzzling the place under Nico’s ear. Nico is leaning heavily against the counter, legs shaky. Nico knows if he tries to move, he’ll end up either falling or in a lot of pain, and he lets himself enjoy the rush of endorphins instead.

Percy’s weight becomes almost too much for Nico to bear for a second. “You’re going to kill me,” Nico comments, but his blissed out tone makes it sound like less like a complaint and more complimentary. Percy snickers, but his weight lifts a little.

“Need me to carry you?” he asks, straightening almost to his full height. Nico’s scowl is ruined by the dopey grin he can’t shake.

“Try, and we’ll see how badly that ends,” Nico promises darkly, but Percy grins even brighter and kisses him.

He lets it continue for a moment, just enjoying being able to do this after his time wanting so badly, but he and Percy have other things they have to deal with. He pulls away. “We should get dressed. And shower.”

Percy huffs. “Do we have to?"

“Yes,” Nico tells him, leaving no room for arguing. He adds graciously, “You shower first.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Resolution and epilogue, because life goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUN, the last chapter. Hopefully the resolution is sufficiently goofy as to match the rest of this fic. I had a lot of fun writing it, even the worst of it. If you were expecting a lot of plot, I'm so sorry; there is none for you here. Also, a surprise secondary pairing (if it can even be called that, considering it's only mentioned once in all of 44k words), and a crack pairing to boot! I am a sucker for rarepairs, of course I had to have at least one. 
> 
> To everyone who has left kudos, bookmarked, or commented: THANK YOU SO MUCH.

It takes a couple more minutes of Nico nagging for Percy to actually get into the shower, but he’s faster than Nico is. By the time Nico is done, Percy is already, unfortunately, dressed in shorts and a Camp Half-Blood tee shirt that looks newer than the last one. Nico ignores Percy’s eyes on him as he moves into his own room and grabs a pair of pants he hasn’t yet worn with a random tee shirt. He tugs them on and goes to find Percy sprawled on the couch.

Percy looks up as he enters. He balks. “You’re wearing colors.”

Nico looks down at his shirt, which while it isn’t black is also not really a color. “It’s grey.”

“It’s not black,” Percy says, still sounding amazed. Nico rolls his eyes.

“Can we just talk to this god and figure this out,” Nico snaps, but his cheeks are heating slightly.

Percy rolls off the couch and onto his feet in a maneuver that looked more painful than graceful. Nico follows him out the door, trying to ignore the feeling that there’s something they’re missing as they head to the beach.

Nico watches as Percy plops onto the sand a couple feet away from the shoreline and copies him, giving him a look. “Why here?”

Percy shrugs. “It’s where he dropped me off.” He bites his lip and looks at Nico. “What now?”

“Pray, I guess,” Nico says.

With a sigh and a shift, Percy closes his eyes. Nico watches his face in the moonlight for a moment.

Percy cracks open an eye before closing it again and visibly focusing harder. Nico fights the urge to laugh at his almost constipated expression. Percy tries for another minute before make a frustrated noise and glaring at the sky. “This isn’t working.”

Nico just gives him a look. “Trying praying out loud,” Nico suggests patiently. Percy looks dubious, but he tries.

“Hermes, I want to talk to you. If you could, I don’t know, show up or maybe let me Iris Message you or something, that would be pretty cool,” Percy tells the starry sky. Nico fights the urge to smack himself in the forehead again.

“You are terrible at this,” Nico tells him.

Percy frowns. “I usually just pray to my dad, okay, and he isn’t exactly the most formal of dudes.”

Nico sighs. “Okay, let me try.” He closes his eyes and ignores Percy’s expectant look. “Oh, Lord Hermes, please respond to my prayer. I have a few questions and an idiot who needs to apologize.”

There’s silence for a moment and then the sound of fluttering feathers.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Hermes says from behind them. Percy nearly gives himself whiplash with how quickly he jerks his head around. Nico is on his feet, hand moving to his side automatically, but he relaxes. Hermes just smiles serenely, like the idea of a demigod reaching for their weapon in his presence is the least of his worries. Actually, it probably is, now that Nico thinks about it.

“That would be because you made it impossible for me to talk to people,” Percy tells him moodily. Hermes gives him a critical look.

“I wasn’t talking about you.” They both turn to look at Nico.

“What?” Nico asks in surprise. “Me?”

“You always made a sacrifice to me when you’ve traveled in the past,” Hermes reminds him. Nico scowls.

“You did?” Percy asks, turning his look on Nico. He looks slightly betrayed.

“Yeah,” Nico admits, a little defensive. “I mean, I’m a wanderer. He’s the god of wanderers. It makes sense.”

“Your father probably didn’t like it,” Hermes comments.

“My father hasn’t mentioned it. Besides, it was Hermes’ cabin I lived in when he refused to claim me,” Nico says.

“He did that for your protection,” Percy argues. Nico glares at him.

“I didn’t realize you were such an advocate for my father’s choices,” Nico snaps. He waves his hand dismissively when Percy tries to respond. Nico turns to Hermes and continues on. “This isn’t what we wanted to talk to you about.”

“I had assumed,” Hermes told him dryly. Percy frowns.

“Percy has something he needs to tell you,” Nico prompts.

“Uh. Sorry, for being rude,” Percy says. It sounds pitifully disingenuous even to Nico. Nico reaches over and slaps his arm lightly. “I mean, you were right about this being a dumb idea. Or, at least, I thought so at first. No, don’t hit me again, Nico, I’m serious. If it weren’t for this whole thing, I probably wouldn’t have seen you for another, like, five years.”

Nico is torn between wanting to shadow travel away from the look Hermes is giving him and kissing Percy breathless. “Of course you would,” Nico tells him, but he can’t help but feel uncertain. “I always would have found you, eventually.”

“No,” Percy says, shaking his head. He’s turned away from Hermes almost completely. Nico thinks it’s a miracle Percy Jackson hasn’t been smited simply for existing yet. “I don’t mean it like that, although that is probably a thing we should talk about later.” Nico blushes.

Percy turns to Hermes and sighs. “I really did need a break, but you were right in that I shouldn't have tried to shut myself off. I rely on my friends and others too much to really be able to solve my problems without them.  I’ve never really seen that as a bad thing, but it’s definitely something I should have considered before I demanded this whole excursion. I’m sorry.”

Hermes looks like he considers this for a moment before shrugging. “I’m a busy man, Percy Jackson, and while that was gratifying, I’m curious as to how open you think my free time is, to be willing to ask me to carry a message personally to your father.”

Percy’s face goes red. “I didn’t really think about that. I just thought it would be the fastest and most reliable way that wasn’t me praying into the ether.”

Hermes smiles. “Compliments will get you nowhere.”

Percy opens his mouth, looking frustrated again, but Nico interrupts. “I’m sure he’s sorry for abusing a gracious god’s power, after the past few months.”

“I was almost a god once,” Percy mutters.

“A small god,” Hermes counters. He gives Nico an appraising look. “Has it really been a couple of months? He’s lasted longer than I would have thought.”

Nico shrugs. “He told me he wanted to leave a couple days in. He’s probably only stayed because he didn’t know he could talk to only certain people.”

Hermes hums thoughtfully. “Is that what you think?”

“What?” Nico asks, taken aback.

“He can only talk to you, in particular,” Hermes explains. “No one else. He was right to stay here, lest he lost all his friends to his apparent cold shoulder.”

“Why me?”

“Why Nico?”

He and Percy say it at the same time and then look at each other. Percy shrugs helplessly, and Nico rolls his eyes.

“I like Nico,” Hermes says. He smiles indulgently. “You’re a good kid.”

Nico frowns. “Thank you,” he says, sounding dubious.

Percy looks more irritated by this than he has by anything else Hermes has said so far. He takes a step closer to Nico and gives the god a stubborn look. He opens his mouth to speak and Nico can’t help but automatically brace himself. “He is a good kid,” Percy agrees. Nico relaxes. “I appreciate the company, at least.”

Hermes laughs. “I’m sure you do.”

Nico feels bewildered. “So that’s the only reason? Because you like me?"

Hermes shrugs. “Consider it a blessing. Having a god favor you is far better than having a god dislike you.”

“Do you dislike me?” Percy asks. “We’ve worked together before, and you seemed to like me just fine then.”

“I don’t dislike you, Percy,” Hermes says with a roll of his eyes. “But every one of us, as gods, are prone to spite. We have bad days.”

“Bad days,” Percy repeats.

Nico quickly steps in again, bringing Hermes’ attention to himself. “Is there anyway we can convince you to reverse whatever you did to Percy?”

Hermes waves his hand in a scarily familiar motion; it’s one Nico favors when Jason is being particularly obnoxious. Nico’s hand clenches at his side at the sight. “Already done.” He looks at the bright blue watch on his wrist and sighs. “While this has been fun, I have to go. Busy day, today.”

“Thank you,” Nico says.

Hermes beams at him. “You’re quite welcome.” He turns to Percy. “Take care not to make the same mistakes with the other gods as you have with me. I’m the most sane of the family.” He ends with a scarily severe grin. Nico gives Percy a wide eyed look, only to find Percy already giving him the same expression. Hermes leaves between one blink and the next.

Nico studies the space the god once occupied. He can’t help but feel a little shellshocked. Percy looks to be in a similar state.

Wordlessly, they sit down next to each other in the sand. The water has gotten a little closer to them, the noise a little louder than it had been.

“I meant what I said,” Percy says. Nico moves his gaze from the waters and to Percy’s face, only to find Percy’s already looking at him. His eyes look darker in the halfmoon light but just as mesmerizing. “I may have been miserable for a lot of this, but getting to talk to you again, and everything else. It’s been worth it.”

Nico feels his cheeks heat. “You’re ridiculous. Months of solitude should not be worth, like, six days with me.”

Percy smiles softly at him. “It really was, though.” Percy bumps shoulders with him. “Plus, I get to kiss you now.”

Nico’s face is definitely bright red. “You probably could have kissed me at any point in the past seven years, and I would have been at least somewhat cool with it.”

“What about me not being your type?” Percy teases.

“You’re definitely not,” Nico tells him, keeping a straight face. “I just like you in spite of that.”

“What’s your type then?” Percy leans in, resting his chin on Nico’s shoulder. Nico feels happiness blooming in his chest with the proximity.

“Someone who isn’t dumb enough to get trapped on an island because he didn’t respect a god,” Nico starts. “Or take useless risks, or wears wifebeaters, or has to have every pancake he ever eats blue-”

“I get it,” Percy says, laughing, hands up in surrender. Nico misses Jason like a punch to the gut. “I’m the worst possible choice for you romantically.”

“You really are,” Nico admits. “There’s a lot of history of hurt, and I wanted you for so long, that I probably built up what being in a relationship with you would be like too much. It’s going to be rough.”

Percy kisses his cheek. “But it’s going to be worth it.” He sounds sure, and something in Nico settles.

“I hope so,” Nico says dryly. “Otherwise I sprung you from this place for nothing.”

“That’s right,” Percy says, wonderingly. He looks back at the house and then to Nico again. “I can leave. I can talk to people who aren’t you.”

Nico makes a face. “Why do you keep phrasing it like that? I didn’t realize I’m such a struggle to talk to.”

Percy gives him a smirk. “Well, there are other things I think of doing with you, and it’s a little distracting sometimes.”

“Insatiable,” Nico comments. “You are just a giant pervert.”

“Or I’ve just been thinking about kissing you since the moment you showed up,” Percy says. His lighthearted tone falls flat. Nico blinks at him.

“You have?” Nico asks in surprise.

“Yeah,” Percy admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re really attractive. It’s not my fault you show up all snarky and smiling at me like you hadn’t avoided me for four years.”

“Sorry about that,” Nico says, quietly. “It would have been too much, being friends. I just kind of knew it would probably end up with me wanting you again, because I’m a masochist. It was just better to avoid it all together.”

Percy blinks at him. “I still don’t get how you could know that.”

Nico opens his mouth and closes it again. “You make me feel things. Constantly. I’m mad, irritated, and disgustingly besotted all at once, and it never, ever stops. No other person can really do that to me. I compartmentalize everything, because it’s easier for me that way. I can’t compartmentalize with you. I never have been able to, which is probably why you thought I hated you for so long.”

Percy is silent for a moment, but he grabs Nico’s hand. Their fingers weave together easily, and Nico’s heart is still pounding from his admission, but he feels himself relax again anyways.

“We don’t have to leave right away,” Percy says after a minute. “We can hang out here for another day or two.”

Nico wiggles his eyebrows at him. “Oh really? You don’t want to talk to anyone you possibly can, right away?”

Percy leans in and places a soft, chaste kiss on Nico’s lips. “Not right away, no. They’ve waited this long.”

“Not trying avoid your problems again?” Nico asks. “Not that I mind being used as a distraction.”

“No,” Percy promises. He kisses Nico again, a little more drawn out this time. Nico’s smiling as Percy pulls away.

He thinks he hears a cough from behind him, and Nico realizes he’s definitely the worst person. “What about Willy?”

“What?” Percy asks, pausing in where he was about to kiss Nico again. Nico resists the urge to close the space between them.

“We can’t just leave her here,” Nico tells him. “She’ll be so lonely once we’re gone.”

Percy thinks for a second. “Maybe we can transplant her on one of the actually populated beaches.”

Nico smiles. “I think she would like that. We’ll have to remember where it is, so we can find her when we visit.” Nico leans in to close the gap.

Percy makes a peculiar face, as if he has just remembered something, and gives Nico a searching look, mouths desperately close. “What did you mean when you said you would be able to find me?” he asks abruptly.

Nico’s face feels like it’s on fire as he practically jerks away. “Nothing. I just meant, you know, the fates are pretty big on having things happen.”

Percy narrows his eyes. “You’re blushing,” he says after a second. “And you’ve already told me you never thought I’d reciprocate.”

Nico leans in and kisses him the way he’s been wanting to in lieu of answering, using a sandy hand to cup Percy’s cheek. He pulls away with his teeth dragging on Percy’s bottom lip. Percy’s hair is a wind tousled mess, eyes half-lidded as Nico looks at him. Nico can’t help but lean in again. He keeps it in mind that kissing works as a form of distraction and pushes Percy down into the sand, climbing over him.

They don’t leave the beach for a while.

 

* * *

**Two Months Later**  

* * *

 

When Annabeth walks in, Percy is sitting with Nico’s legs draped over his lap, using Nico’s knees as a desk for his computer. She gives them a considering look before marching over to the couch. She doesn’t even seem to notice that Nico lifts his feet for her to take the seat, or that he puts his feet back down in her lap once she’s seated. Instead, she huffs, face pink, and irritation written in her stance.

Nico and Percy look at each other for a moment. Percy shrugs, and Nico gives him a look.

“Want to talk about it?” Percy asks delicately. Annabeth throws her head back against the ugly yellow sofa and glares at him.

“I think Piper is sleeping with Will Solace,” she announces. Nico can’t stop the laugh that chokes its way out of his throat. Percy gives him a warning look, protective of Annabeth even now. Nico pats his shoulder and smiles fondly in return.

“I highly doubt that,” Nico aims at Annabeth, who is staring at the ceiling like it personally offended her. “Considering he is gayer than I am.” She doesn’t look convinced. He tries a different tactic. “They’re best friends, Annabeth.”

“I dated my best friend for five years!” she counters, whole body moving as she turns her argument on Nico.

Nico uses his foot in her lap to nudge her. “Piper loves you, Annabeth. You both need to stop being idiots and just talk it out.”

“It’s so weird that it’s you telling me that,” Annabeth tells him. Nico doesn’t take it to heart.

Percy perks up visibly. “Right? It’s the strangest thing. Jason did a number on him.”

“Jason didn’t do anything to me,” Nico tells them, annoyed. “I grew up, the way we all were supposed to.”

“Will, then,” Annabeth says to Percy.

“No,” Nico tells them.

“Hazel?” Percy suggest to Annabeth. They both look back at Nico, grinning. Nico crosses his arms.

“It’s not my fault you guys became emotionally inept as adults,” Nico grumbles. Annabeth laughs and leans back onto the couch, looking more relaxed.

She sighs. “I know I should talk to her, but it’s so hard,” she whines.

“I know,” Percy agrees, “but you guys will be a lot happier once you talk about it.”

“Then what?” Annabeth asks teasingly. “Will we travel the world and then mooch off our friends together like you guys?”

Nico snorts, but Percy just pouts. “You wish you could mooch like we can,” Nico says.

“Jason’s a pushover,” Annabeth tells him, and Nico just raises his hands and shrugs because it’s true.

“We stay at your place just as much as we stay at Jason’s,” Percy points out.

“Your name is still on the lease,” Annabeth reminds him. She shifts on the couch, aiming a curious look at Percy. “What are you writing?”

Percy’s hand moves to the computer screen, ready to close it at a moment’s notice. “Nothing.”

“He’s novelizing your adventures,” Nico confides. Annabeth’s eyes get an evil glint. She looks at Nico, and he nods minutely.

Annabeth moves towards the computer, distracting Percy as Nico slides it down his legs and rolls off the couch with it. Annabeth holds Percy down as Nico scrolls his way through the open word document.

Nico stares for a moment in wonder. Percy Jackson is a man of many talents and virtues, something Nico has been reminded of again and again in their years of knowing each other, but apparently there is at least one thing Percy cannot do.

“Oh, wow,” Nico says, reading the mangled sentences.

“Let me see!” Annabeth cries from under Percy, who has managed to flip them on the couch. She pushes her way out and peers over Nico’s shoulder. Annabeth makes a choked noise. “Oh my gods, Percy, this is horrible.”

“It’s not done yet,” a red faced Percy complains, hair disheveled. He even looks handsome as he pouts, something Nico finds incredibly unfair. “I was going to edit it after I wrote it.”

“No, this,” Nico starts, “is, um.”

“It’s absolutely atrocious,” Annabeth tells him bluntly. “There is no saving it.”

“I think it’s very true to the events,” Nico says diplomatically. Annabeth gives him a look. “Even if not really structured properly.”

“What were you expecting! I’m dyslexic,” Percy whines. “Besides, I’m not really big on literature or poetry. You guys should know that better than anybody.”

Nico and Annabeth share a look. It’s one that still feels a little uncomfortable for Nico, knowing that Annabeth knows exactly what he knows about Percy’s more romantic side. This time, Annabeth asks, “Has he tried serenading you yet?”

Nico can’t stop the incredulous laugh. “No, but he did try to recite a Pablo Neruda poem from memory,” he admits.

“Oh, which one?” she asks. Nico blushes.

“XVII, I think?”

They both look at Percy, who looks caught out.

“Hey, at least Nico knows I like him in a gay way,” Percy accuses. “Piper still thinks you come here to bone me when Nico isn’t looking.”

Annabeth makes a face. “Been there, done that.”

Nico laughs, but he gives Percy a wink. “I don’t know. I like it.”

“Percy could learn the trumpet, and you would think it was the most amazing thing he’s ever done,” Annabeth complains. Percy looks overwhelmed again.

“You really do need to tell Piper, though,” Nico responds, closing the lid of the laptop.

Annabeth sighs. “You just want me to leave so you guys can get back to whatever you do in the Sex House.”

“‘Sex House’?” Percy chokes out.

“Everyone knows you only come here so you can have sex without Jason frowning disapprovingly at you,” Annabeth explains. “That’s what Leo told me, anyway.”

“Leo needs to keep his nose in his own business,” Nico says darkly.

“You’re just upset because Hazel spends all her time at his house now instead of hanging around you,” Percy teases. Nico shoots him a glare.

“I’m still surprised he broke up with Calypso, even if it was a while ago,” Annabeth says, lying down onto the floor. She uses Nico’s leg as pillow. He thinks that between her and Percy, he’s never been touched more in his life.

Nico shrugs. “I don’t think any of us can actually date anyone who isn’t part of our group at this point.”

Annabeth and Percy exchange a look before both aiming fond smiles at Nico.

“What?” Nico asks, eyes narrowed.

“‘Our group’,” Annabeth quotes. She looks happy.

“Well, yeah,” Nico admits awkwardly. “We are part of a group.”

“You included yourself,” Percy says. Nico gets stuck staring at his soft green eyes for a moment.

“Oh,” Nico says awkwardly.

Annabeth clears her throat. “But yeah, I get what you mean.” She sits up and crosses her legs, picking at one of her socks idly. “Sometimes I talk to other people at the university, outside of class, and it’s just like, they get it, but they never could. No one else can understand unless they were there.”

“Exactly,” Nico says, nodding. “I think that affected their relationship a lot. Besides, Calypso seems more than happy now.”

“What?” Percy asks. “She’s dating someone else?”

Annabeth looks at Nico incredulously. “You didn’t tell him?”

“It never came up,” Nico admits.

Annabeth shrugs and turns to Percy. “About halfway through your stay here, Calypso and Clarisse started dating.”

Percy silently gapes for a second. “What?”

Nico snickers. “Oh, yeah. They’re really happy too.”

“They balance each other,” Annabeth says dutifully.

“I thought Clarisse-” Percy rubs his jaw. “Wow, well. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “I thought it was weird too, but whatever.”

“I think it’s cute,” Annabeth admits. “In a really weird, I’m not sure how it works kind of way.”

“You just said they balance each other,” Percy accuses.

“I’m assuming,” Annabeth retorts. She rolls to her feet. “On that note, I’m going to go. I think I should talk to Piper.”

Nico frowns. “Why did you think Will and Piper were sleeping together?”

Annabeth stares at him for a moment, suspiciously. “She’s been staying at his place a lot,” she admits.

Nico bites the inside of his cheek. “Is he okay?”

“You probably should be asking him that,” Annabeth says, looking awkward. Percy is giving Nico a worried frown that Nico doesn’t like.

“Shut up,” he says to Percy, waving his hand at him. “I just hope he finds someone. Not Piper, but someone.”

“I’m going to go,” Annabeth says, pointing at the door with her thumb. “Bye, love you guys.” The door closes behind her a couple minutes later, but neither boy pays attention to it.

“I know,” Percy tells Nico, like Annabeth had said nothing at all. Nico thinks it betrays just how much Percy cares about this particular topic. “I’m not upset.”

“You always get a little upset when I mention Will,” Nico accuses, making his way across the floor to where Percy is still perched on the couch.

Percy just sighs. “I guess it’s just because, well. While you were gone, all I could think about was whether or not you were getting back together with him, and if you would come back. Then when you did come back, I thought it was because you wanted to know why I wouldn’t leave the island and wanted to help.” Percy’s face is pink around the edges. “I may have been trying to somehow get you to like me instead.”

Nico rolls his eyes and resists the urge to laugh. “Percy, I was into you the whole time.”

“Yeah, I know that now,” Percy says, “but in my head, I kind of worked Will up to be this enemy I had to defeat.”

“Oh my gods,” Nico says from where he’s sitting at Percy’s feet. “You’re the prettiest idiot I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not dumb,” Percy says, instantly.

“No, you’re not,” Nico agrees. He climbs into Percy’s lap. “But you are very pretty.”

“Gee,” Percy says, but he’s already looking at Nico’s mouth. “Thanks.”

Nico grins. “Want to make the place live up to the name ‘Sex House’?”

Percy smiles back and kisses him.


End file.
